Interview with Rogelio Bernal Andreo, coRank creator

coRank is a social bookmarking service that focuses on a network of friends. That way you're getting bookmarked sites from the people you know; you're more likely to appreciate their contributions and they're more likely to appreciate yours. coRank is like Digg in many ways, but with the added benefit of having a closed network of participants. In this way it's more useful to those who would like to utilize coRank's bookmarking services. The result is a very tailored Front Page for bookmarks that have floated to the top.

I got a chance to catch up with Rogelio Bernal Andreo, creator of coRank.

How does your service work?

coRank is a site that shows you websites and stories that get a high ranking from most of your sources - people whose opinion you value. In other words, it's like a Digg where you decide who plays the game when it comes to promoting stuff to your front page.

Not only that, you can also determine what topics you want a particular "source" to be influential to your Front Page. So perhaps I love your tech insights but dislike your taste in music or politics.

So in coRank, your Front Page is yours only, and likely different than any other.

What are the benefits of adding this social aspect to a voting bookmarking service?

Most social bookmarking sites assume that everyone's an expert on everything. That's ok and that's why many of these other sites are thriving, but I believe there are people out there that would love being able to personalize their experience a bit more. I don't know of any other site that today allows you to do some of the things coRank does. It does take a bit of initial effort on your side, but I think it pays off and also it's fun to do.

How are friends incorporated into coRank? Is it possible to easily include friends from existing networks?

At this moment you can either browse through the user directory, check your "like-minded" page that shows other users that are behaving pretty much like you, and invite whomever you want to join coRank and become your source. Soon we'll be adding "import tools" for selected networks.

Could coRank easily be abused by a group of friends seeking attention for their story?

Because coRank's focus is on bringing each user what his or her sources are marking up and keeping out what they mark down, it would be very hard for an outsider to influence the results on each user's front page. Even if a group of people selected each other as their own sources, only they would be getting the news stories they submit.

How has your experience with both larger companies such as Netscape, and start-ups such as eListas helped you with coRank?

The most helpful thing from a technology standpoint would be that coRank has been developed with scalability in mind, so that no matter how popular the service may grow, it will scale really well just by adding hardware (and at a reasonable pace). From a market/launch prespective, not many "learned lessons" have been applied, as I'm trying to keep coRank a personal project.

You mentioned that you plan on introducing coRank to eListas. Will that be as an added feature, or simply for marketing purposes?

I want coRank to remain as an independent project, so what we'll do is introduce the service to the eListas users, but not as an added feature.

This article was written by Kristen Nicole, who writes for 606tech.com.