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When Thoof launched in July 2007 a lot of people gave it a good chance of success despite the fact that it was entering into the dreaded personalized news space. Sure, the market was littered with failed startups, but Thoof was founded by former Revver cofounder Ian Clarke, and was well backed by Austin Ventures, Ron Conway and others.

Thoof aimed to deliver tailored news by looking at what you click on, and nothing else (vote buttons and other tools weren’t a true indicator of intent, Clarke argued). From our first post on Thoof:

Thoof determines what you like based solely on what stories you click on to read. Asking for specific feedback, like voting or rating of stories, is too much to ask of users, Clarke says, noting that only a very small percentage of people who watched videos on Revver ever actually rated them. By analyzing what you tend to click on, Thoof will return results that it thinks you are more likely to click on than others. The result, over time, is a perfectly tailored news page for an individual.

The site peaked in October, but by January the wheels were coming off the car. We heard at that time that the company would continue to limp along and see what happened. But in the last couple of days the site has been redirected to Reddit, and Clarke officially moved on to another project in April.

We’ve asked Clarke and Austin Ventures for a comment, but it’s pretty clear Thoof is in the deadpool, joining competitors like Searchfox (deadpool, assets acquired by Yahoo), Findory (deadpool), Spotback (change in strategy) and Feeds 2.0 (no idea what their status is, site is live).

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Source: Michael Arrington

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Barack Obama’s campaign has posted a blog post announcing the launch of its official account on Scribd, the online document repository. The page, which can be accessed at http://scribd.com/barackobama, will serve as a resource for documents related to Obama’s policy, along with official statements.

Y Combinator-funded Scribd is a “YouTube for documents” that allows users to upload an array of filetypes that are converted to a Flash format viewable on most computers. The document viewer, called iPaper, can also be embedded in web pages. Since its launch in 2007, Scribd has seen explosive growth, and now claims to see nearly 20 million monthly unique visitors.

Scribd’s inclusion in the Obama campaign isn’t surprising given the candidate’s adoption of web-centric services like Twitter (his official account has over 52,000 followers). In contrast, opposing candidate John McCain has admitted to not being particularity tech savvy, though as we noted in our endorsements for the candidates, his policies will matter far more than what web 2.0 services he’s fond of.

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Source: Jason Kincaid

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Julie Wainwright was chief executive of the infamous bubble-era failure Pets.com. She’s trying again with SmartNow, a Web site for women over 35.

Source: By CLAIRE CAIN MILLER

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Young Internet entrepreneurs, some holdouts from the old days and a few members of the city’s creative class (and underclass), are engaged in a new type of party.

Source: By ALLEN SALKIN

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Reuters - Yahoo Inc’s board of
directors won strong backing from shareholders at its annual
meeting on Friday, with Jerry Yang, the company’s embattled
CEO, receiving 85 percent of the vote in his favor.

Source: Reuters

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Social Gaming Network, a startup behind a number of popular social network games, has partnered with the Arbor Day Foundation to create a Facebook game to raise money for, of all things, planting trees. SGN has created a game called “Space Movers: The Bloom Initiative”, and will donate up to $50,000 of the game’s advertising revenue to the cause. You can check out the app by going here.

The game itself plays almost exactly like Bejeweled, with a few goofy characters and icons that all fit under a vague “nature” theme. And while the gameplay may not be too original, the game has high production values, with a full soundtrack and animations.

The partnership is the latest in a string of unconventional promotions we’ve seen from developers on social networks, who are going to great lengths to increase exposure and help their games “go viral”. Last month Slide partnered with VH1 to to promote its application alongside a marathon of reality shows.

SGN focuses on games that include social interaction, and claims 1.1 million daily active users across Facebook, Bebo, MySpace, and hi5, with a reported 54 million application installs. The company has raised some serious cash, with over $20 million in funding and investors including Jeff Bezos. Zynga, its closest competitor, recently closed a $29 million Series B funding round led by Kleiner Perkins, and has raised a total of nearly $40 million.

Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

Source: Jason Kincaid

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Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

Source: Dan Kimerling

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Julie Wainwright was chief executive of the infamous bubble-era failure Pets.com. She’s trying again with SmartNow, a Web site for women over 35.

Source: By CLAIRE CAIN MILLER

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