Zenome, A New Human-Edited Web Directory

Canada’s Globe and Mail offers up a look at a new human-edited directory of web resources called Zenome.

Although Zenome might look like the ODP, its founder’s say Zenome has been designed to overcome some of the ODP’s problems.

In an attempt to avoid some of these problems, the founders of Zenome (whose name came from the idea of indexing the digital genome, like the Human Genome Project did for DNA) decided to pay editors to review and approve links.

Where does the money come from?

From the Zenome site:

Zenome pays Editors ongoing commissions based on the revenues generated by their Sub-Category, and by Zenome as a whole.

Other human-built directory services like Zeal and About.com are also mentioned in the article.

Finally, some person named Gary Price (-: is quoted in the article mentioning two excellent human-edited directories that are well organized, maintained, and provide excellent annotations about each entry. One directory is called The Librarians’ Index to the Internet (LII) and the other, Infomine. If you’ve never taken a look at them, you should. Both can be essential resources for web researchers. For more info about the LII, Infomine, and other directories that worthy of your attention, take a look at the SearchDay article: The Value of Non-Commercial Web Directories.

I’ll be keeping an eye on Zenome and will report back on its development.