Techmeme is undeniably the leader of the pack; it has solid algorithms and ranking systems in place that can quickly detect breaking news and gives you a clean overview of which other technology news sites and blogs are discussing it practically with minimal lag. It has its flaws, sure, but I dare you to show me a service that does what Techmeme is supposed to do better than they are.

The only web service that I’ve ever seen pop up of which I thought it could potentially become a real Techmeme competitor was Techfuga, a site that mimicked Techmeme in many ways but added some extra bells and whistles (like Twitter search, for example). At launch, the site garnered quite a bit of positive commentary. Louis Gray said Techfuga was the result of mating between Techmeme and Alltop, and Robert Scoble said the site was showing Techmeme how to innovate. But don’t bother going to the site right now to check if they were right. It’s been down for a few days and you won’t see it come back up again for a couple of months.

While we’re still awaiting a formal response from Techfuga founder Joao Azevedo, we gather from his latest tweets and FriendFeed chatter that he plans to rebuild the entire platform and come back with a completely overhauled Techfuga in a couple of months. It’s beyond me why the startup doesn’t just keep this version live and switch to the new one whenever it’s ready for prime time, but Joao says on FriendFeed that this is because of “set up and costs management during this development time”. Judging from its traffic estimates, I doubt a lot of people are actually going to miss it.

That said, I do hope they come back with something awesome, because I happen to think we need more competition in this space.

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The feature, dubbed MyAlltop, lets users create a custom page with a so-called vanity URL (e.g. my.alltop.com/techcrunch) where they can add feeds from a variety of topics and display all the widgets on one page, which can then be shared with others. All users need to do is register and add feeds to their public pages by clicking a small plus sign displayed next to feed widgets.

I know what you’re thinking, and you’re right. Personalized start pages like Netvibes, iGoogle, PageFlakes, etc. have been around for years, and they pretty much all offer the above and much more. MyAlltop only lets you grab feeds that are already on Alltop, so no custom widgets for you (tough luck if you wanted to insert your mom’s blog). Furthermore, Alltop doesn’t have a decent search function, which makes it very hard to look for sources to add unless I’m 100% certain they will be in a specific category. With 31,000 sources in 550 topics, they’re hurting themselves not to make search a priority instead of launching new features like MyAlltop.

For example, I can’t find our sister site MobileCrunch anywhere on Alltop (not even in the Mobile category), so that pretty much blocks me from creating a public TechCrunch presence on Alltop with all our feeds in it. All I could do at this point is notify Alltop that there’s a great resource on all things mobile missing in the pre-defined category list of feeds and hope that they add it. Personalization it ain’t.

You could of course claim that Alltop takes the hassle out of having to locate the RSS feeds of your favorite sources and go through a few steps in order to add them to any personalized feed reader, but how much of a problem is this really? I think it’s a bit of a stretch to claim MyAlltop simplifies creating a custom feed reader because it already has been dead simple for many years. In my opinion, anyone who thinks the process of personalizing your RSS feed reading experience with Netvibes or iGoogle is cumbersome will probably feel the same way after trying MyAlltop.

Here’s a video about Alltop (the new feature is explained a bit in the end):

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It wasn’t too long ago that Guy Kawasaki announced Alltop, a news aggregation site that tries to make it easy to find the top stories on a slew of topics (212 at last count) from some of the better sources on the Web. One of the biggest problems with Alltop was its poor design and cluttered layout. But in a major redesign that improves the overall experience, many of those issues have been resolved.

Alltop now lets users search for topics by way of a categorical listing, alphabetical listing, or keyword search, all of which is conveniently placed on the site’s homepage. From there, you can decide to search for something specific, or click your way around the topics based on your interests.

But one of the main questions with Alltop still remains: is it a valuable enough resource to make users forget about creating their own Netvibes pages and use this service as their source for news? After some close inspection, I’d have to say that it’s getting close.

Searching around Alltop is quick and easy. I first made my way through the tech pages and evaluated the quality of the site’s tech section. It offered the latest headlines from Techmeme, which was a welcome addition, and along with TechCrunch, featured informative content from dozens of the best tech sites on the Web. It was a treat.

I had a similar experience on Alltop’s baseball page, which provided me with the latest news from each team and the latest content from some of the most reliable sources in the sports realm, like Small White Ball and Mudville Blogs. The information was categorized well and, with the option to hide the less useful sources, I was able to shrink the page to a more manageable size.

In each category, the experience was much the same: simple, elegant, useful. And compared to Newsflashr, Alltop’s main rival, it was a treat to see a site that’s actually designed well and not so excruciatingly ugly. That said, Newsflashr offers a Techmeme feed that lists the latest headlines from each of the the top 100 Techmeme sources, which may come in handy for Techmeme fanatics. (Alltp, how about a Techmeme Leaderboard page?)

Alltop’s redesign makes up for some of its earlier shortcomings and is ideal for anyone trying to find one place to read all the best news.

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All the usual suspects are included on Frienderati. Mostly bloggers and other Web celebrities like Dave Winer, Loic Le Meur, Kevin Rose, and Guy Kawasaki (who is also one of the founders of Alltop and last week sold his other project, Truemors, to NowPublic). The site does not explain how someone gets on the list, but it appears to be the most followed individuals on FriendFeed. (Compare to this list on User21). There is a lot of overlap here with another Alltop site, Twitterati, which (you guessed it) shows the latest Tweets of the “top” people on Twitter (Kawasaki, Winer, Robert Scoble, etc.). Since most of the content on FriendFeed comes from Twitter anyway, Frienderati is really is pretty much the same thing, with a few different names.

Like other Alltop sites (which aggregate top feeds in other categories), this one is kind of a head-scratcher. There is no way to sort, so I guess you are expected to scroll through all 94 names to get what you are looking for. It would be helpful if the names at least appeared in order of their most recent entries, like on FriendFeed itself. Or you could just browse Friendarati to see which, if any, of the top names you might want to follow on your own. (Even though the point of FriendFeed is to follow what your real friends are saying—oh, never mind).

I like the name, though. It sounds like a cabal, and maybe it is. But I guess Top Friends was already taken.

Update: In an email, Kawasaki says the list is “based on all the other articles about the top people to follow plus our gut. Did we say it’s 100? We just tried to find about 100.” And he notes in a comment below that it is just meant to be a starting point for FriendFeed.

(Full list after the break):

Top FriendFeedsters According to Frienderati

Aaron Brazell – Lead Editor at Technosailor
Adam Ostrow – Editor-In-Chief at Mashable
Aliza Sherman – Author, Producer, Blogger
Allen Stern – Editor of CenterNetworks
Amber Mac – New Media Journalist
Andrew Chen – Entrepreneur
Andy Beard – Niche Marketing
Annie Boccio – Founder of Pixel Currents
Becky McCray – Small Town Entrepreneur
Ben Metcalfe – Social Media, Web2.0 Consultant
Beth Kanter – Social Media Consultant to Non-Profits
Brian Solis – Publisher bub.blicio.us
Burt Lum – Digital Ronin
Cathryn Hrudicka – Chief Imagination Officer
Cathy Brooks – Genetically Engineered Communicator
Chris Brogan – Social Media Expert
Chris Pirillo – Founder of L0ckergn0me
Christine Lu – Founder of the China Business Network
Corvida – Mass Media Student of SheGeeks.net
Dan Farber – Vice President at CNET Networks
Dave Winer – Entrepreneur, Software Developer, Social Media Expert
David Sifry – Founder Technorati
Don MacAskill – CEO of SmugMug
Emily Chang – Award-winning Web Designer, Technology Strategist
Eric Eldon – Reporter with VentureBeat
Eric Rice – New Media Producer, Writer
Erick Schonfeld – Co-Editor, TechCrunch
Erin Kotecki Vest – Queen of Spain, BlogHer, Huffington Post
Francine Hardaway – Entrepreneur, Mentor, Investor
Fred Wilson – VENTURE CAPITALIST
Frederic Lardinois- PhD student, Web2.0 Writer
Gabe Rivera – Creator of Techmeme
Ginger Makela – Social Media Specialist
Guy Kawasaki – Author, Speaker, Online Magazine Editor of Alltop
Jason Kaneshiro – Writer at Webomatica
Jeff Jarvis – Writer, Consultant for New Media
Jeremiah Owyang – Sr. Analyst at Forrester Research
Jeremy Zawodny – Craigslist
Josh Quittner – Time Magazine’s Editor at Large
Justine Ezarik – New Media Connoisseur
Karen Padham Taylor – Product Manager at Google
Kathy Johnson – PR, Analysis, Results
Kent Newsom – Proprietor of Newsome.org
Kevin Rose – Founder of Digg
Kristen Nicole – Lead Writer for Mashable
Laura Fitton – Social Media Expert, Consultant
Leah Culver – Founder, Developer of Pownce
Leo Laporte – Author, Tech Broadcaster of TWiT Live
Loic Le Meur – Entrepreneur, Founder of Seesmic
Louis Gray – Corporate Technology Marketer
Maggie Fox – CEO of Social Media Group
Maki – Sole Writer of DOSHDOSH
Mari Smith – Relationship Marketing Consultant
Maria Reyes-McDavis – Social Media Diva
Mark “Rizzn” Hopkins – Associate Editor of Mashable
Mark Krynsky – Lifestream
Marshall Kirkpatrick – Lead Blogger at ReadWriteWeb
MG Siegler – Reporter at VentureBeat
Muhammad Saleem – Social Media Marketing Consultant
Nicole Simon – European New Media Specialist
Niniane – Google’s Engineer Manager
Paul Kedrosky – Investor, Writer, Entrepreneur
Pete Cashmore – Mashable
Philipp Lenssen – Google Blogoscoped
Rafe Needleman – Editor of Webware
Rebecca Briggs – Helping the World Heal from the Inside Out
Richard MacManus – Editor and publisher of ReadWriteWeb
Rob Diana – Regular Geek
Robert Scoble – Tech Evangelist
Roxanne Darling – Technology Trainer, Speaker
Ryan Ozawa – Father, Husband, and Web Geek
Sarah Lacy – Author
Sarah Perez – Blogger at ReadWriteWeb and Channel 10
Scott Beale – Publisher, Editor of Laughing Squid
Shannon Seery Gude – Geek Marketer
Stephanie Booth – Social Media Consultant
Steve Rubel – Digital Marketer
Steven Hodson – WinExtra
Susan Bratton – Podcast Publisher
Susan Reynolds – New Media Consultant
Tamar Weinberg – Lifehacker and Mashable
Tara Hunt – Online Marketing Professional
Thomas Hawk – CEO Zooomr Inc.
Tom Foremski – Founder Silicon Valley Watcher
Tony Hung – Blogger
Tris Hussey – Training Manager b5Media
Veronica Belmont- Host of Tekzilla on Rev3 and Qore on PSN
Wendy Piersall – CEO and Founder of Sparkplug

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ReVou promises “Twitter clone software made affordable” for $399 as a self hosted script. The script offers all of Twitters features, including SMS support, and even comes with its own API. The only question then becomes is why would you want to host your own Twitter? This is what ReVou says:

Existing site owners can benefit from running a micro blogging service resulting in more viral growth for your website when your users interact with follow friends by receiving updates via our social network platform. With our SMS integration as well as custom API, we allow you to gain more revenues through purchase of SMS credits, revenues from web advertisements and as well benefiting from 3rd party applications built for your site using our API.

Naturally I’m a little skeptical but there is a thriving marketplace for Digg style voting sites, with some services (Sphinn comes to mind) doing particularly well in various verticals. Perhaps there’s no reason why Twitter clones might not have some success, be it as stand alone sites or more likely integrated into existing membership based sites.

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The home page lists a number of categories. Each links to a page that pulls in blog feeds. Here’s Venture Capital, for example. Kawasaki calls it an “online magazine rack,” and adds that it is “a news aggregation site that provides “all the top” stories for forty of the most popular topics on the Web. The headlines and first paragraph of the five most recent stories from forty to eighty sources for each topic are displayed. Alltop stories are refreshed approximately every ten minutes.”

So I sort of passed on criticizing Truemors since Kawasaki said it was more of an experiment in showing how something can be built for next to nothing. But AllTop is just a big pile of nothing. Back in 2005 Fred Oliveira, for example, built this site in about 5 minutes, which is pretty darn comparable to one of the AllTop categories. I’m giving this a big thumbs down. Sorry, Guy. I still love ya.

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Guy Kawasaki has just launched a news aggregation site called Alltop that displays headlines from a preselected set of “top” sources. The headlines are broken into categories such as celebrities, gaming, and politics.

Which category displays headlines from our very own Michael Arrington’s personal blog CrunchNotes? Egos.

Now all of us around the office already knew Mike had a particular affection for himself, but we weren’t about to launch a website promoting that fact. Thanks for doing it for us, Guy.

Alltop gives homage to its inspiration, popurls, and serves as a kind of preconfigured Netvibes except only for RSS feeds. I wonder, however, why there’s no technology category. We found the site via Brian Solis.

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