Suggestion engines: the web directory is back

Ever since the information superhighway has existed, web developers have tried to build the perfect roadmaps for people to find compelling content. Yahoo started it, Google copied them, but there hasn't been any true visions of a web directory in a long time.

Today, Twitter and Tumblr launched "suggestion engines".

Tumblr is the best place for "meme blogs", but it also has very interesting content. Their first attempt at a directory categorizes their sites pretty well. I was able to find a few really interesting websites.

Twitter uses various algorithms to showcase featured users. They also solved, or patched, the ever loathed suggested users list.

The social web needs these discovery engines for people to find new stuff, simply said. I would like to see some competition from Delicious, Foursquare, Digg, Stumbleupon, Wordpress, Facebook and Google. And it should be visually pleasing to interact with.

Startups like Gravity have an interesting take on how conversations should be aggregated and displayed.

Have you seen cool visual interfaces for finding interesting web content?