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findingDulcinea Gives a Curated View of the Web [The Startup Review]

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STARTUP DETAILS:

Company Name: findingDulcinea

20-word Description: Our mission is to bring users the best information on the Web for any topic, employing human insight and methodical review.

CEO's Pitch: FindingDulcinea clears away the clutter of the Internet and brings quality content to the fore. It is simply the best place to start your Internet research on any topic. Any Internet user, regardless of experience or sophistication, will save an immense amount of time with findingDulcinea. Our team of 30 expert Internet researchers organizes the best resources on the Web by topic, and provides a concise, clear narrative that tells you why the site is recommended and what you'll find when you visit it. FindingDulcinea presents only credible, high-quality and trustworthy Web sites, saving time for the novice and the experienced user alike.

Mashable's Take: The self-selected task of the folks at New York-based findingDulcinea is an immense one. Continually sorting the large quantity of information coming from around the Web for the benefit of you, a browser of such data, is unquestionably difficult, not to mention imperfect. It's a process that, while bound to please some, will no doubt fail to satisfy others. That being said, the service, with its 30 or so expert researchers and reviewers, appears to do the job remarkably well.


FindingDulcinea is really all about discovery. It's a service with a function described as "the librarian of the Internet," and it seems to measure up to that label. Irrespective of its visual presentation, which has its share of good and not-so-good flavors (all of which are of course held under a mostly subjective view by the user), the site packs variety. A lot of it. On its home page alone you'll find news, entertainment, information navigation guides, and more, all situated in a dozen or so categories, plus a good share of odds and ends to bring everything full-circle. I don't hesitate in the least when I say that I truly like what I see there.

The whole place is completely intuitive, and can be learned in just a few seconds. A minute, tops. You visit, you get it. It might seem a little too generic at first, a little too much uniformity at the front door, a tiny bit reminiscent of some link farms. But give yourself some time to adjust, and you may well find yourself paying return visits. Regularly, even.

Mind you, text posts aren't the only attraction at findingDulcinea. The site's producers have put together a video podcast called Daily Dulcinea, fit into today's standard five-minute format, that covers hot topics as well as a feature story. It's a fairly basic feature to the site, just a host or two or three sitting at a conference desk talking about the day's highlights, but it's enjoyable nonetheless, particularly if taken in combination with the broader library of information found on associated pages.

It may not invoke a feeling of depth and solidity at first, which its front page layout is perhaps partly to blame for. Maybe some extra subtext for all headlines might do the trick. But if you're willing to click through various parts of findingDulcinea, it is surprisingly good at delivering material relevant to the present moment.

And if you're at all curious to know the meaning behind its name, just check the FAQs.

Sponsored By: Sun Startup Essentials

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