Alltop is like marijuana (kinda)

“Too dumb for geeks, too geeky for dummies.”

That’s a horrible place to be stuck if you’re a new web application, and that’s exactly the reaction I received from Jay Moonah when discussing the newly launched Alltop.

For those of you that missed the big announcement by Guy Kawasaki this morning, Alltop is basically an aggregator that groups feeds based on certain topics. According to their website:

You can think of an Alltop site as a “dashboard,” “table of contents,” or even a “digital magazine rack” of the Internet. To be clear, Alltop sites are starting points — they are not destinations per se.

I’ve been playing with Alltop for a few weeks now (it has been up for quite some time pre-launch) and have already put it to good use, but it was only after my conversation with Jay today that I realized that the true power of Alltop is its role as a gateway drug.

Alltop is easy to get and easy to like

For reference, here’s a snippet of the conversation I had with Jay over Twitter today:

• jmoonah: Hmmm, not sure I get http://alltop.com/ — is it just a bunch of pages with a bunch of RSS feeds? Am I missing something?
• vasta: That’s all it is. You’re not missing anything. It’s really feed aggregation for dummies, to be honest, and that’s why it’s smart.
• jmoonah: I sort of get it, but I have no idea who I’d point here. To me it looks too dumb for geeks, too geeky for dummies. Who’s the target?
• vasta: A friend asked me yesterday, “how do you stay on top of all that Mac news?” I pointed him to http://mac.alltop.com/. He=impressed.
• vasta: *I* don’t use Alltop, but it’s a good way to introduce people to feeds if they’re willing to learn but don’t have an entry point.
• jmoonah: Yeah that makes some sense. Be interesting to see how it does.

The anecdote about my friend is completely true, and it’s not the first time I have referred someone to the site.

A few weeks ago, a relatively tech-savvy friend was ruing the fact that there was no central repository for all the big sports news stories on the web. (ESPN ignored several smaller sports on its homepage.) I recommended subscribing to the RSS feeds of several sports sites, but my friend wanted a much easier way to get his news. The Alltop Sports page solved his problems.

Alltop makes you yearn for more

It may be too “dumb” for the geeks, but there is a large portion of the internet-using public that aren’t using tools like RSS but still are pretty comfortable with using the web and browsing extensively. Alltop is perfect for them.

The best part of it all will be the time when those same people using Alltop will stop and say, “I wish there was some way I could customize this page.” As soon as that time comes, these people will become new potential users of tools like RSS, Netvibes, and iGoogle. And that, if I may say so, will be a good day for the web.

Alltop is the first step — easy, fun, and seemingly harmless — to turn dabblers into hardcore users. Support groups to follow.

You Make My Day Awards

Henna Singh over at Canadian Beauty (if you like fashion, you should definitely be reading Canadian Beauty) tagged me as the only guy in her You Make My Day Awards post, so I thought it was only fair that I carry on the meme.

The rules go like this:

Give the award to 10 people whose blogs bring you happiness and inspiration and make you feel happy about blogland. Let them know by posting a comment on their blog so they can pass it on.

Simple? Not really. I subscribe to over 500 blogs and tumblelogs, so picking just ten that make my day was incredibly difficult. I’m going to give it a try though, and I apologize to anyone I may have left out:

• nostrich: I may have just discovered this blog over a month ago, but already I’ve gone through the entire archive because of the hilarity of the content and amazing writing.
• The Sartorialist: Call me superficial, but well-dressed people make me smile. I love the stories people can tell with the clothes they wear.
• What I Learned Today: We all learn something every day. Diana shares her questions and knowledge with all of us so that we can learn with her.
• meish dot org: It’s no secret I’m in love with fantastic writing, and Meg Pickard has a command of the English language that is downright inspirational.
• dokoohakoo’s loft: Tina has always been an inspiration in my life, and this tumblelog lets her share her wisdom with all of you as well.
• Anil Dash: He’s an influential man in the web/tech world, he loves Prince, and he’s remarkably astute. He’s super funny too.
• xkcd: There really isn’t much to say: xkcd has proven to be the most engaging, relevant, and hilarious comic on the web today.
• Ill Doctrine: He bills his site as a hip-hop video blog, but Jay Smooth’s site is much more than that: it’s an exposition of truth.
• 5ives: If you haven’t got enough laughs simply following Merlin Mann’s Twitter updates, then 5ives is guaranteed to give you a chuckle to start your day.
• cubicle 17: He’s smart, astute, has fantastic design sense, and likes his coffee strong. What isn’t there to like about Bill?

Those are just the first ten that popped into my head, but there are so many other blogs that keep make me smile every morning. So instead of just thanking them, I want to thank everyone that creates content on the web, everyone that makes my morning surfing a much more pleasant experience.