Youlicit is a new social recommendation service similar to Stumble Upon and del.icio.us. While Youlicit has similarities between the two, it is inherently different. Stumple Upon sends you to a “series of random recommended sites within a conceptually broad topic space” where as Youlicit “knows your specific context and will return sites that are of extreme relevance and importance to your current interest.” Users are allowed to save sites under their profile, but it is not intended to replace your social bookmarking site. It does, however, use social bookmarking data (tags and such) as a way to further fine tune their recommendations.
So how does Youlicit work? Well, it is a plugin for Firefox and does not currently support any other browser. If you are on a site that you like and want to see more sites like it, you can click the Youlicit Next! button to go to a relevant site. Instead of going to a single site, you may wish to see a list of related sites. You can click the Youlicit More! Button to get such a list. While you do not have to register to use these features, you do have to register in order to recommend sites. Recommending the site will also save it to your profile which will then help Youlicit tailor recommendation to you specifically.
I find this service pretty interesting. One reason why I do not use Stumble Upon is because I usually dont have the time to waste on random sites. However, having a ‘search engine’, if you will, to help me find relevant sites pertaining to something I am currently looking for could be very useful. Also, leveraging social bookmarking data is extremely smart. I do worry about Yulicit’s ability to stay relevant itself. I mean, what happens if Stumble Upon adapts this sort of functionality? I like rooting for the small guy, so let’s hope Stumble Upon doesn’t and Youlicit can find its audience.
