Spotback’s shining moment
Awhile ago I wrote about the lack of applications using RSS in methods that will be useful to the non-technical crowds. Most of the applications that use RSS lacking the vision of turning from RSS aggregator, in whatever form, into a personalize news/knowledge source.
An interesting and very promising attempt in the right direction is the service offered by spotback, an Israeli startup that tries to deliver personalize newspaper instead of aggregations of RSS feeds. Tech Crunch provides a very comprehensive review of spotback’s different features and give the company a well deserved good review.
I differ from Mike’s assessment that spotback is in competition with services like netvibes. Unlike these services spotback making attempts to learn what interest you, instead of what feeds you want to subscribe too. spotback is an attempt to to provide the masses real alternative to the old media and is on the right track to be tomorrow’s newspaper.
I have a strong feeling that before long we are going to see more attempts in taking RSS use to the next level. However today spotback is shining alone and it deserve all the compliment that it will surely get.
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You are right in differentiating Spotback (content personalization) from Netvibes/Pageflakes (homepage customization). Spotback user experience, albeit not perfect yet, is designed to assist users discover great content without actively searching for it. In today’s overwhelming amount of fresh news there is a growing need to offer alternatives to conventional news search and Spotback is aiming to do that by focusing on the RELEVANCY of specific news item to a specific user, rather than on the overall POPULARITY of the news item.
Micha
29 Aug 06 at 2:31 am
You are right in differentiating Spotback (content personalization) from Netvibes/Pageflakes (homepage customization). Spotback user experience, albeit not perfect yet, is designed to assist users discover great content without actively searching for it. In today’s overwhelming amount of fresh news there is a growing need to offer alternatives to conventional news search and Spotback is aiming to do that by focusing on the RELEVANCY of specific news item to a specific user, rather than on the overall POPULARITY of the news item.
Micha
29 Aug 06 at 3:31 am
I agree. I would just add that Spotback’s competition isn’t netvibes rather than Tech.Meme and Google News. Both trying to filter the flood of information but the philosophy is completely different
Rogel
29 Aug 06 at 10:55 am
I agree. I would just add that Spotback’s competition isn’t netvibes rather than Tech.Meme and Google News. Both trying to filter the flood of information but the philosophy is completely different
Rogel
29 Aug 06 at 11:55 am
People looking for a service offering personalised content without requiring much technical knowledge might also like http://tiinker.com . It’s also a personalised news service, pulling stories from news websites and blogs as it’s published and learning what each user likes to read.
Alex
19 Feb 08 at 8:04 pm
People looking for a service offering personalised content without requiring much technical knowledge might also like http://tiinker.com . It’s also a personalised news service, pulling stories from news websites and blogs as it’s published and learning what each user likes to read.
Alex
19 Feb 08 at 8:04 pm