Why Alltop is a Great Idea

The short version of it is - Google provides you with a pile of search results, Alltop gives you all the top news as selected by all the folks who write the top sites on the Web. Aggregation without aggravation, or a starting point for your exploration journey on a number of topics. This is how the portal is described on the site.

The methodology they use to find and add sites is by community. They added green and humor categories, too - we need both!

I'll come clean with you, Conversation Agent was chosen for the following categories - egos (along Mark Cuban, Lawrence Lessig and Dave Taylor), marketing, customer service, and content marketing. Thank you, readers, colleagues and friends. Thank you, Alltop!

After being a long time admirer and acquaintance (it takes more than a few emails to say you know someone who knows thousands of people, doesn't it?), I had the pleasure of meeting Guy Kawasaki face-to-face at the recent Blog Council event in San Jose, CA.

[photo courtesy of Blog Council]

Many of us have been online long enough to have our own blogs (no, I do not think blogs are going away), be on Twitter, have mastered LinkedIn, are re-friending long lost school buddies on Facebook and have these massive threads on the value of FriendFeed on FF itself. Our RSS readers are a well researched collection of information and we probably met many of the people we read in person. We analyze, slice, dice and aggregate online metrics with the ease of Web metrics gurus - or something like that.

I know what you're thinking, we are still in the minority, even though 73% of Americans and 64% of Europeans are online (source: Forrester). An increase in adoption means not only that more people are potentially reaching up on the participation ladder, it also means that there is more out there to discover. Mon dieu, how do you find all that content? How do you make sense of it by category? It took me three years to build a good stream of content that is useful and inspiring, and I keep adjusting.

You can begin with Alltop and personalize from there - make the portal your own. I ran a quick survey asking what people liked about Alltop on Twitter, here are some of the answers:

  Access to a bigger audience for less known bloggers, diversity of topics, makes research easy, it's simple and clean to navigate, it's a niche aggregator - and it gives Guy Kawasaki something to do. This is probably as good a mix of opinions as you're going to get about it. There's even some feedback about the Twitter feed.

It may not be perfect, but it can save you a ton of time and help you jump start your reading and learning. I know where to go when researching a completely new topic. What would you do to improve the experience? What new category would you add?

Comments

[Deb]

Thanks for this heads up. I'm still getting my feet wet in this blog/social media/networking online field - and this should really help!

Deb
www.debworks.com

[Len]

Alltop is a phenominal resource. It's a very personalized version of a technorati because its moderated, as you said, by the community. I worked with Guy to get my own blog up and running within "customer service" and despite how busy he is (and the tech difficulties we had) he made sure it all worked out in the end.

For anyone who wants to build up their RSS feeds, this place is a one stop shop!

[Ms. Single Mama]

I absolutely LOVE AllTop. I like how I can quickly scan all of the day's hot topics at a glance rather than sorting through my reader.

Thanks again for creating it Guy!

[Scott Bourne]

Alltop has become one of my most important go-to sites. But I really am upset with Alltop because my productivity has gone down the drain since they launched. I find myself browsing topics I didn't think I was interested in, reading blogs I never heard of and generally having a blast at the expense of real work I am supposed to get done :)

Seriously, it's one of those ideas that just resonates with folks and I know it works. Since Guy was kind enough to list my blog in the photography section, we get lots of traffic from Alltop.

[Devin]

I love Alltop! The only major category I haven't been able to find (which is shocking to me) is one for foreign/international affairs/relations. I can't possibly be the only one interested in what's going on specifically on the international level, can I? Am I just missing it in the listings?

[Valeria Maltoni]

@Deb - glad I could be of service and welcome to the blogosphere!

@Len - I like it when people work "with" one another. That is why I think this site is a great idea.

@Ms. Single Mama - it is very visual and ideal for someone who is looking to expand their reading habits as well.

@Scott - and now I had the opportunity to spend some time with your site, too. Sometimes the most productive thing we can do is take a pause and learn.

@Devin - I'm sure your suggestion has been noted. I am a member of the World Affairs Council and totally get how important it is to broaden the horizons. Great suggestion.

[Audrey Julienne]

Thanks Valeria, I didn't know about Alltop and it looks like a great resource. To answer your question above, a couple subjects missing: in WORK category, I would add Hospitality (there is something about Hotel, but Restaurants & Bars are left behind and there are a few good blogs out there), also in SPORT, I would add Dance, after all, ballroom dancing is now an Olympic sport!

[Shinil Payamal]

What I like most about AllTop.com is that it is easy to navigate and the best feeds are arranged neatly for almost all the mainstream topics you can imagine. And http://goodtweet.alltop.com/ is something I check regularly through out the day. Simply awesome resource!

Best Wishes,

Shinil.
@shinils on Twitter - http://twitter.com/shinils

[Dave Taylor]

Wait, I'm confused. Is it *good*, bad, or indifferent that I'm in the "ego" section with you, Valeria? :-)

[Sandeep Arora]

Congrats for being on Alltop.

On a different note - i want to mention that we really liked your detailed and thorough post on Corporate Blogs - http://www.conversationagent.com/2008/02/corporate-blogs.html . (comments are closed - that's the reason I write here)

It was used a primary reference in our Flash Video for Corporate Blogs
http://vizedu.com/2008/11/corporate-blogs-mandatory-for-companies-today/

When you click on references - you will see the mention. Just wanted to thank you and share the Flash with you.

Thanks
Sandeep

[Valeria Maltoni]

@Audrey - good suggestions for additions. After all, isn't conversation just like a dance?

@Shinil - it's interesting to hear how many different uses the site has for people.

@Dave - definitely good ;-)

@Sandeep - Your flash is simple and to the point and you make good use of images as representation of concepts. Glad my content was useful.

[Kate Brodock]

Guy has really expanded this service quite well. I think breaking it down into industries/expertises etc has been very valuable. I use various AllTop "databases" on a pretty regular basis to find quality information.

I've also recommended a few websites (not my own) to Guy that I think are valuable additions.

Cheers,
Kate

[Denis]

Hi Valeria,

I absolute love Alltop... especially because every 2.0 start up ask people to cocreate. Finally a startup that sorts out all the cocreation! Brilliant (and simple) idea.

Denis