Do you have a huge number of blog and news feeds in your feedreader that you can’t possibly keep up with on a daily basis? Or, on the other end of the spectrum, have you resisted deciphering those three little letters, RSS, and continue to check your bookmarked links regularly to see if your favorite web pages have updated?
Now there is a new — and incredibly simple — solution. Guy Kawasaki, whom I used to read in Macworld Magazine when he was the original brand evangelist, recently started a new network of websites called Alltop.com. Based on the popurls model, the sites — each focusing on a specific topic — show the latest five posts from a wide range of news sources and blogs covering that topic, all on one page. Topics include celebrities, health, “green,” social media, small business and many others.
I suggested to Guy that he create a “nonprofit” topic and worked with him to identify news and blog feeds that should be included. And that’s how nonprofit.alltop.com was born.
Like a smorgasbord, you can eat as much or as little as you want. Scan the headlines to see what looks good. Hover the mouse over a headline to get a taste of the full text. Or click on an item that looks especially yummy and go to the original site to eat the whole thing. Maybe you’ll even discover some new sites you didn’t know about before.
Photo Credit: WhatCouldPossiblyGoWrong?
Nedra helps nonprofits and public agencies create positive change on health and social issues through social marketing and transmedia storytelling strategies at Weinreich Communications since founding the company in 1995. She helps organizations make a difference for the populations they serve by strategically designing programs that draw on state-of-the-art behavior change techniques, digital media approaches and the power of stories. 
Very nice, helpful, and greatly needed! Thanks for bringing it to fruition. On another note, who can we contact to try and get our blog added to the list?
Thanks! =)
The Alltop FAQ (http://alltop.com/about/) lists an email address where you can send your suggestions for additions to the line-up.
I like the collection of content that it pulls together, but it just creates another location that I need to go to — and I’m up to my gills with that. It might introduce me to new sites that I will add to my RSS reader, but I don’t think I will visit the site itself. Have I missed something?
abf, if what you’re doing is already working for you, no need to add this to your routine (beyond checking out whether there are other feeds you should be following). I see this as especially helpful for those who are RSS-phobic. Or what I find for myself is that I want to catch the latest headlines but I’m so behind on reading my 150 feeds with weeks worth of posts accumulated that I feel obligated to read everything to catch up to finally see what’s recent. I can just take a quick glance to see what’s new at alltop. I think nonprofit staff particularly are less likely to be tech-savvy and this is a great alternative to them having to bookmark and check their favorite sites daily.
Nedra:
Great idea. There are several pharma and health-related blog aggregators that I find very helpful. Thanks for putting this together!
Thanks, Fard!