Previous versions of this article in print and on the Web referred to the Web site Mahalo as Mahola. This version has been corrected.
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Brijit Cuts Magazine Pile Down to Bite-Size Pieces
Jeremy Brosowsky, front, started Brijit and hired, from left, Orr Shtuhl, Bryan Keefer and Aaron Lovell.
(By Katherine Frey -- The Washington Post)
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Search engines are proficient at quickly returning a big pile of results to a query. But what's the best stuff in the pile?
Increasingly, sites such as Brijit, Mahalo (which calls itself "human-powered search") and ConsumerSearch, a product-review site, are adding the man to the machine to create comprehensive search results that are edited for quality.
In addition to Brosowsky, Brijit has three full-time editorial staffers. Brosowsky depends on freelancers for reviews of most articles. His editors assign magazine articles that they want reviewed by posting them on the site, and seek three reviews for each article. Users can claim an assignment and write the synopsis. If Brijit accepts a freelance review, the writer is paid $5. If the editors don't like any of the three reviews, the article will be reassigned.
Web site Associated Content has a similar formula for soliciting user-generated content.
Like Associated Content, Brijit will aim to make money by selling advertising, Brosowsky said.
So far, Brijit is reviewing magazine articles and some television shows, such as PBS news programs. Brosowsky said Brijit is adding 60 to 75 abstracts per day.
Many of the 100-word abstracts allow readers to click directly to the article on its publisher's Web site. But some do not, because some magazine Web sites require users to pay to read their articles online. But that's less of an issue now than when Brosowsky dreamed up Brijit months ago. For instance, the Economist recently took all of its online content dating back one year out from "behind the wall" -- an Internet publishing term for making paid content free.
Brosowsky, a former research analyst for Goldman Sachs, is no stranger to local publishing startups.
In 1999, he launched Business Forward, a monthly glossy based in Dupont Circle that covered local business. Brosowsky had hoped it would be a Forbes or Money for Washington, and it enjoyed some critical success during its short life. But the bursting of the first tech bubble and the local real estate plunge killed Business Forward in 2002. Brijit is Brosowsky's first start-up since then.
His partner in the effort is Benjamin Dorr, who worked with one of the venture's investors, Carlyle's Edward Mathias, and who was one of Brosowsky's partners at Business Forward.
Brosowsky said the site's name was influenced by a couple of desires.
Brijit rates magazine stories with a series of three red circles -- three empty circles means the article is worth passing up, three full circles means it's a must-read. Brosowsky wanted a name for his site that had three letters topped by red dots (which limited him to "i" and "j") in a row, to echo the three-circle rating system. Also, he wanted it to be a woman's name or sound like one.
On the site, Brijit is described as "smart, sexy, fun, helpful, well-read."
A button allows users to send the Brijit URL to others. "Yes, Brijit's engaging . . . but she's not engaged," the site cheekily reads. "So introduce Brijit to friends."
