Thing 67. Alltop

We know that keeping up with the news is important for all library staff--not only on library-related topics but world, regional, and local news, too. You know all about RSS and aggregators like Google Reader or the late, lamented Bloglines. Google Alerts is another way to keep up. You can set up a topic search and have Google send you emails with links to stories on a schedule you define. Alltop offers another way to stay up-to-date. It is a good way to supplement your RSS feeds or to find new sources of news and information.

Alltop states that its purpose is to “help you answer the question, “What’s happening?” in “all the topics that interest you.”  Essentially, it aggregates websites, blogs, and other information sources for a given topic into individual webpages, such as Libraries. On any given topic page, you are presented with several information resources that  
Alltop has chosen to include on that topic. The latest 5 headlines for a given information resource are shown along with that headline’s first paragraph (through the use of a mouse-over.)  Topics can be accessed via an alphabetical list or search.

There are 5 tabs located near the top of the page that are constant:

Hot Topics is the default page that you see when you enter the site. These are topics from a wide spectrum of information sources. From what I can see, many of them are technology-related, but not exclusively. According to Alltop’s About page,

We use a patent-pending, semantic computational algorithm derived from the post-doctoral work of Guy at Stanford. Just kidding. We rely on several sources: results of Google searches, review of the sites’ and blogs’ content, researchers, and our “gut” plus the recommendations of the Twitter community, owners of the sites and blogs, and people who care enough to write to us. Let us declare something: The Twitter community has been the single biggest factor in the quality of Alltop. Without this group of mavens and connectors, Alltop would not be what it is today… If you’ve gotten the impression that Alltop is not based on computer algorithms or popular voting, you’d be right. We are highly subjective and judgmental.

To note, the above quote contains the answers to two different yet related FAQs, but I think it gives you a feel for how this site is set up.

New Topics lists the newest topics added to the long list of topics on Alltop.

My Recent Topics is like the History in your Internet browser; it is where you’ve been. 

Holy Kaw is really interesting as it is described as “all the topics that interest us" seems to be a place for the site’s producers to post a variety of interesting, quirky, fun, or offbeat items. The format of this page is a blog with links to the original information source.  Again, the items on this tab fit Alltop's claims of "highly subjective."

I've left the MyAlltop tab to discuss last as this is the tab that you can use to personalize your Alltop experience.  Setting up is as easy as picking a username, password, and a valid email address. 

The username becomes part of your personal url:  http://my.alltop.com/yourusername which you then can use to directly access your MyAlltop account. To add information sources to your MyAlltop page, either click on the letter of the alphabet to go to a topic page or do a search by entering a term or terms into the Search box. Once you've found the topic page you're interested in, adding one of the information sources is as easy as clicking on the green + located to the right of the title of the information source (a mouseover on the green + gives the message "add this feed to my.Alltop").

A tutorial is available for Alltop that is a very well-done short video located on the About page. This page is also full of information about Alltop, including information about how to submit information resources to Alltop.  If you are looking for an easy to use site for keeping up on a topic and don't mind that someone else has done the choosing for you, then Alltop may be for you.

 Michael Scott, Southeastern Libraries Cooperating



Image: 'Laptop, the well-travelled suitcase years'
http://www.flickr.com/photos/36778932@N00/2218440756

Thing 54. Hyperlocal Sites

In this thing, we’re exploring the not-so-new idea known now as hyperlocal websites. “Not-so-new” in the sense that what many of these sites are doing is providing that local (town, city, neighborhood, or even block) information source that many small town daily or weekly newspapers have always provided. As many of these newspapers are beginning to disappear and larger newspapers are dropping most local coverage, this type of local news coverage is moving to the web. The field of companies offering this service is growing and have become desirable to some larger media companies such as MSNBC, AOL, and so on. To give you a sense of the variety of sites out there, let’s take a look at a couple of sites: EveryBlock and Patch.

EveryBlock, owned by msnbc www.msnbc.com, takes a granular approach to reporting local news. Rather than just reporting news for entire city, say New York City, they offer news feeds for every block in 16 cities, which as of today includes:

• Atlanta
• Boston
• Charlotte
• Chicago 
• Dallas
• Detroit
• Houston
• Los Angeles
• Miami
• New York City
•  Philadelphia
• Portland
• San Jose
•  Seattle
• Washington DC

By entering a street address or neighborhood name, you can find news coverage, public records, and other content that is either from that area or in the same geographic area.  EveryBlock states that it is trying to answer the question, “What’s happening in my neighborhood?” The company does the gathering of this information and presents it to the end user. EveryBlock focuses on four categories of local news:

• Civic information – defined as public records information, including permits, crimes, restaurant inspections, etc. EveryBlock has established relationships with local governments to make this information more readily available.
• News articles and blog entries – defined as information from major newspapers, local TV and radio, community weeklies, local blogs, and other local publications. EveryBlock then does the work of geographically classifying these articles.
• Fun – defined as coming from diverse places on the web, such as Flickr www.flickr.com, Yelp www.yelp.com, Craigslist www.craigslist.org and so on.
• Announcements – defined as news, classifieds, and upcoming events. This category even allows for the posting of announcements.

Creating an EveryBlock account
Each EveryBlock site allows users to register for “extra features.” To register, go to any of the 16 sites and click on Register in the upper right corner and follow these steps:

1. Type in your email address. A message will be sent to your email to verify that the email address you entered was indeed valid.  Click on the link in your email and go to step
2. Set a password. Type in a password for your account (retype it for security purposes) and Voila! You’ve created an account.

Once you’ve created an account, you can set your preferences to what types of information you want to see on your page, what neighborhood(s) you’d like to be emailed about or would like to have set up as a saved place, and post announcements, alerts, etc. There is also an iPhone app that can be downloaded as well so that you can take your news on the go.

Patch www.patch.com is a site that really does seem to take that small-town newspaper idea and run with it. Rather than focusing on a block or neighborhood in a city like EveryBlock, Patch focuses on an entire small town or city. Currently, Patch has cities in 5 states (California, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and New York) and as of today, 44 towns and cities. 

Each page has the same basic layout, which includes sections such as news, announcements, events, and a section called essential which includes things like videos, calls for volunteers, and listings for local organizations. Here is an example of a Patch site for Livingston, NJ.

Other sites of hyperlocal sites of interest:

• Outside In http://outside.in/
• Placeblogger http://placeblogger.com/
• The Examiner – Mankato http://www.examiner.com/Mankato Note: There are other Examiner city sites and topics, too.
• AmericanTowns http://www.americantowns.com/

Will we soon rely on these hyperlocal sites to get all our news and information? Time will tell!

By Michael Scott, Assistant Director, SELCO/SELS

Newspaper Image: A Stack of Newspapers. DRB62 Photostream