One year ago, Guy Kawasaki launched a simple categorised RSS directory called Alltop.com. The site organised RSS feeds into various topics with separate domain names for each http://startups.alltop.com, http://fashion.alltop.com etc…
The site earned a great deal of attention and discussion, primarily due to its web celeb founder Guy Kawasaki – a legendary marketing guru – but also due to it’s similarity with another RSS orientated site with an almost identical layout PopURLs. Over the last year, Kawasaki has continued to add topic after topic to the site, and its current count stands at an impressive 550 topics according to Jennifer at Mashable.
Today however marks the launch of a brand new feature which greatly enhances Alltop’s product offering, it’s called MyAlltop.
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MyAlltop is your own personalised version of Alltop. Once you’re all signed up, simply browse or search Alltop’s numerous topics and add your favorite sites as you along to your own MyAlltop page. (It should be noted that PopURL’s also let you create your own personalised profiles but primarily based on shared individual stories rather than specific website feeds.)
Kawasaki and Electric Pulp (the sites developers) have maintained the same level of simplicity that most devoted Alltop users will have come to expect. Aside from reordering your personal MyAlltop page, there isn’t a whole lot more to it, which may leave some heavyweight techies itching for more functionality. For the average RSS newbie however, the simplicity will come as a welcome change to other RSS focused web apps out there.
Most tech geeks will wonder how you could even launch such an offering when iGoogle and Netvibes provides all this and much MUCH more. Again, however, I reiterate: the beauty in Alltop lies in its simplicity. It’s a risky, albeit, cautious step Kawasaki has taken integrating personalised accounts to site. With personalisation will come calls for additional features, and the moment he decides to gradually add a few – he may find the site losing its most valuable feature…featureless simplicity.
As Kawasaki points out, vanity URL’s (URL’s which include your name) are running out fast, so pop on over to Alltop to ensure you’ve your name snapped up. I woke up especially early to grab mine ;)
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