Comments on: Alltop Thinks My Boss Has a Big Ego

By: thomas

thomas — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 18:10:50 +0000

my two cents: http://tomatic....purls-vs-alltop

By: Pleasure and Pain — Design.alltop.com

Pleasure and Pain — Design.alltop.com — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 06:18:52 +0000

[...] can read more about Alltop here, here and [...]

By: I’m Stealing Your Ideas… » Expert Idiot

I’m Stealing Your Ideas… » Expert Idiot — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 07:17:14 +0000

[...] much emphasis as I place on originality it has its place. In the Techcrunch article on AllTop Mike Rundle (my partner) left this comment: I guess if you can’t think up good ideas, you [...]

By: nickie

nickie — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 12:11:14 +0000

From all news aggregators i prefer http://needfornews.com
they give tag cloud, so you dont need to read all titles to understand wtf s going today

By: Analysis on Guy Kawasaki’s Alltop launch: A Gimmick Site with Marketing Flair

Tue, 12 Feb 2008 20:58:30 +0000

[...] There’s a diversity of different races, a few women involved, and it played well to the egos. Techcrunch and many others fell for the bait. Speaking for myself, it was exciting to see myself on this site (top right, above the fold) and of [...]

By: Alex

Alex — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 01:46:58 +0000

http://tiinker.com is in a similar market but add automatic personalisation. It learns what you like reading and filters/explores for you.

By: j31

j31 — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 18:32:11 +0000

I think I could safely categorize myself into the 95th percentile of the population who does not rely on an RSS reader for content… a site like alltop is a completely refreshing and efficient way for me to glance at all of the top stories without getting lost and irritated in a clutter of god-awful, horrendous design and advertising. Not to mention the time I save populating or even navigating around a feed-reader.

I for one will not be a regular rss-user until someone can invent a method for it to feel and function more like alltop.

http://originalsignal.com? not a fan. I lasted one second on that site, before it pulled my shirt over my head and punched me in the gut. Perhaps the content is good? I wouldn’t know – the layout did not entice me to stay. Don’t get me wrong, it’s got the ‘feel’ of clean…but I cannot possibly imagine it reaches the full audience that it should.

I might also add, if the goal of alltop is such that any end-user would be able to utilize it (most of the population), my own mother gives it the seal of approval. (and that’s saying something) And if it passes the ‘mother-as-end-user’ test… you can be relatively sure it will speak to a wide sector. It’s not just tech-geeks who use the internet.

By: bhc3

bhc3 — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 06:48:45 +0000

Guy sent out a tweet looking for top websites for sports. I tweeted LetsRun.com, but alas no RSS there. Now I understand why he asked.

Interesting site. I don’t know about popurls or Original Signals. But at first blush, this seems like something I could create on my own with an RSS reader.

The real value, I suppose, would be in the way in which Guy manages who is included on the list of “top sources”. If inclusion on that list becomes important and it gets picked up amongst the blogosphere, then this could become something. That’s a big ‘if’ though.

I do like the visual layout of stories. My own visual Techmeme of top stories as I scan the headlines.

Guy – I don’t know what you’re running, but I keep getting some “Unresponsive script” warning in my Firefox browser.

By: Mike

Mike — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 20:03:59 +0000

Adding NewsSnacks to the list- http://news.spo...com/newssnacks/ which also has a “Tech News” preconfigured section at http://news.spo...snacks/technews and “Web 2.0″ section at http://news.spo...wssnacks/web2.0

By: thomas

thomas — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 17:11:58 +0000

from the thousands of folks that step by every day i get lots of feedback from users who haven’t even heard of digg or reddit but signed up after discovering these sites on popurls. i don’t think guy’s selling alltop as the next big thing and if you start the discussion on the feedreader/tech level you’ve missed the idea behind those projects. i could have built an ego, sports, politics and any other mumbo jumbo topic subsite from day one but i rather focused on bringing the web’s zeitgeist to every device and platform (see popurls.net). and that’s just one example – i think there’s plenty of space to educate people what’s cool out there and as long as you ship something remarkable with heart & soul it’s just fine. just don’t think too elite; we’re not all dave winer scholars.

By: rubu

rubu — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 16:54:38 +0000

I like it – you go in and the layout is super clean – navigation is intuitive – allows you to scan quickly over a ton of topics and not feel like you are being overwhelmed. You go beyond subject/linkbait by being able to hover over the article to get an idea if it is worth reading – it is sweet.

By: Jonah

Jonah — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 16:27:25 +0000

Digesty.com does the same thing for food feeds.

By: Sonny Gill

Sonny Gill — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 16:19:36 +0000

For everyone that’s complaining about how similar Alltop is to other sites (popurls etc.) then watch the interview with him and Drue Kataoka on the newly launched site:

http://www.vall...aunching-today/

I feel the simplicity of it makes for a welcoming feeling and an easy to grasp aggregation site, vs. what’s out there right now. Not to mention it touches upon 9 different niches and then broken down even further. Equates to less clutter.

By: CanCar

CanCar — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 16:16:36 +0000

It does look a little unfair. If he’s given Mac a separate section, then why did he hesitate in giving technology and science two different pages?
The news sources that Alltop uses are quite good content wise.

By: Rahul Dighe

Rahul Dighe — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 16:03:21 +0000

in my opinion it doesn’t take a revolutionary technology to build something like this the UI is certainly clean and fresh if it catches on great if it doesn’t i don’t believe anyone is losing millions over this !! its certainly worth a shot.

By: Eric Dewhirst

Eric Dewhirst — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 14:44:35 +0000

Man – what a bunch of whiners!

Seriously for all the complaints and dissing it smacks a lot like “man I wish I thought of that” going around. Yeah it looks like popurls but it just takes it to the next level and they give credit. Oh and before you go wah wah they stole this and that and I could role my own – whatever you didn’t and all the sites people have referenced above are just digg aggregator clones. Nope bottom line it is about a new way of of cleanly looking at what’s out there – sometimes presentation is the secret sauce.

The only thing that jumped out was how it would integrate advertising and still keep it’s super clean aesthetic feel – if they can do that then I think they have something sustainable and worth using.

Cheers – Eric
Ohh yeah one last point – for once a URL that you can tell someone and not look like a tool – alltop.com – what do they do? all the top stories – ahhhh

By: Mark Evans

Mark Evans — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 13:00:33 +0000

With all due respect to Kawasaki, I’m puzzled why AllTop was launched. It’s not like there’s a crying need for it, or that it’s all innovative or unique. It seems like one of these we-can-build-it-for-cheap so let’s launch it kind of projects. Is there any value in doing this kind of thing? I don’t think so.

By: Thomas

Thomas — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 12:37:01 +0000

popurls’s not really about tech, it’s more like holistic web zeitgeist, right?

By: Darren Stuart

Darren Stuart — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 11:14:16 +0000

@21 LOL, I was never happy with the URL but I had never read it that way :p

By: Darren Stuart

Darren Stuart — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 11:12:07 +0000

@Guy did you never come across Original Signals when doing this site. Its pretty well known. Also I would of done tech because I don’t think you will be competing with popurls as there are plenty of sites out there doing this.

By: Pete

Pete — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 08:43:44 +0000

Look at http://popurls.net , they’re clearly onto something bigger than alltop.

By: Blake Robinson

Blake Robinson — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 07:08:57 +0000

Seriously? Judging by the list of people under Alltop “egos,” it’s pretty safe to say that it’s using the word to refer to individuals and not an inflated sense of self-worth. It’s synonymous with person and character in addition to the whole self-love thing.

By: Not Edible

Not Edible — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 07:08:25 +0000

@9: What kind of creepy site is this ? Singles Eater Racing.com ? Some kind of twist on the hot dog eating competition, or a competition for cannibalistic pick-up guys ?

By: Drue Kataoka

Drue Kataoka — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 05:04:01 +0000

Yesterday I interviewed Guy Kawasaki about Alltop.
Here’s the video of his very engaging interview discussing
Alltop, Zen, the Apple aesthetics of the design, and the Egos category:

http://www.vall...aunching-today/

By: Larry Larrikin

Larry Larrikin — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 02:45:55 +0000

Re: Guy’s comment:
So they don’t want to hurt the competition. This is clearly not a serious product/company so what the hell is it doing on TC? There are REAL companies out there that would love a little attention.