dataguy - 1:48 pm on Apr 1, 2009 (gmt 0)

I spent a few years building a system which sounds like it does exactly what you're describing and for the same purpose. It allows a one man operation to manually check tens of thousands of web sites a day. Actually I used to introduce myself to people by saying that I surfed tens of thousands of web sites per day (technically not completely accurate) but it did raise a lot of eyebrows.

My system is set to show 20 thumbnails at a time, along with text and category information (including geo location). If something didn't look correct, I could just check or uncheck the proper box and hit "Next" for the next 20 sites to review. Eventually I added Bayesian filtering to make sure the text on the web page matched the directory category that the owner of the web site put it in. This sped things up even more.

We tried to promise that new directory submissions would be reviewed within 2 hours, which led to hiring some employees to "hit the button" around the globe. We called this "working the hatch" in homage to the TV series Lost when they needed to enter a number into a computer every 104 monutes or the World would come to an end.

I sold this system about a year and a half ago for a nice chunk of change. Sometimes I miss it, most of the time I'm glad it's no longer my responsibility.