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Wakoopa - App Tracking Gets Social

Sharon Hurley Hall — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 11:29:56 +0000

When I first heard about Wakoopa I wondered what the point was, but having actually used it, I find it strangely addictive. Wakoopa describes itself as “a social network that helps people discover the best software, games and web apps on the market.” In an increasingly open online environment, it had to be worth a look.

Tracking Your Apps

To use Wakoopa you have to install a small tracker application on your PC or Mac. After that it starts automatically, works invisibly and keeps track of the desktop and web software you are running. If you enjoy keeping track of stats for their own sake, then you will enjoy knowing how much time you spent running Gmail, Google Chrome or Twitter.

It’s a great way to get a snapshot of what you actually do, without any need to tie it to being productive, as most time trackers do. The evidence speaks for itself, showing me that I use Seesmic more often than Hootsuite to connect to Twitter. The charts about usage are also interesting.

The Social Side

There’s a social side too, though you will have to know someone on the network to get started with this. You can share your top applications and uses with other users and see theirs as well. You earn points for your use of Wakoopa, whether that’s using software for a certain number of hours, adding reviews or submitting suggestions.

So what is Wakoopa good for? In addition to showing how you spend your time, it’s a good place to discover other apps you might not have known about. Click on the name of any app and it gives you a ranking within its main category. Click on that category name to find other applications that you might not know about. If you’re looking for a replacement for your favorite freeware program which you now have to pay for, this could be the place to do it.

Would your life be poorer without Wakoopa? Not necessarily. There are other applications out there that track software usage such as RescueTime and Slife, There are other sites that help you to find replacements for applications you like, such as AlternativeTo. But are they as much fun and as social as Wakoopa? I don’t think so.

This post has been submitted by Sharon Hurley Hall from Get Paid To Write Online.com.

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Wakoopa - App Tracking Gets Social

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Brizzly - A Better Twitter?

Sharon Hurley Hall — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 20:27:45 +0000

I love Twitter, but sometimes feel I need a few more features than it offers. Brizzly fills the gap by providing an enhanced Twitter experience in your browser, and it’s got one other useful trick - the ability to manage multiple Twitter accounts. I put it to the test.

Adding Accounts To Brizzly

I started by adding the three Twitter accounts I manage. To do this, I had to login to each of them on the main Twitter page and then connect them to Brizzly through OAuth - it was simple and quick and I was soon able to navigate to the Brizzly home page.

The left column has links to your profile, mentions, favorites, drafts and pictures (you can use Brizzly to upload photos to Twitter). Further down are links to your DM inbox and sent message, then to groups, then to saved searches (which automatically sync with your Twitter account, no matter where you create them. The saved searches are highlighted in bold if there are new tweets.

Cool Features

The groups are a cool feature similar to the lists that Twitter is beginning to roll out. Just give your group a name, then type the names of people you want to add into a box. It’s a quick way to filter the Twitter noise. Groups are accessible to all the Twitter accounts you manage, which is very useful.

On the right there’s a box at the top where you can keep track of direct message conversations, above another box covering trends. These are the same as the Twitter trends, but with the added Brizzly feature of explaining why they are trending.

Managing Your Twitter Stream

At the top of the centre column is a search box, then avatars for each profile that you manage, then a box for your tweets and your Twitter stream. There are more great features here. Brizzly automatically shortens URLs and will take this into account when telling you how many characters are left. You can save draft tweets (but not schedule them yet). Within your Twitter stream, Brizzly automatically decodes shortened URLs and provides inline views of photos and videos.

Click on someone’s avatar to bring out a menu that reveals their Twitter profile and allows you to follow/unfollow or message them. It also has a mute button which is useful when someone you want to follow happens to be tweeting about something that doesn’t interest you. You can manage people you have muted in the settings panel.

Brizzly - Simple And Effective

If you are used to a multi-column Twitter account manager like Hootsuite, Tweetdeck or Seesmic, Brizzly’s multiple account management interface may not work for you. However, I love its simplicity - click on the avatar to switch to an account and your tweets automatically come from that account.

Brizzly is still in beta and there are a few issues to work on. Your stream doesn’t refresh automatically and if you leave the web page open for a long time, the site can slow down. That said, Brizzly is the longest lasting of the Twitter interfaces I’ve tried and with Facebook integration being rolled out, it will be around for a while.

This post was submitted by Sharon Hurley Hall from Get Paid To Write Online.com.
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Brizzly - A Better Twitter?

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The Human Face of Business Blogging

admin — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 20:10:18 +0000

Before I start this post I should make a bit of a disclaimer. I’m not your average business owner - I’m co-founder of a startup property website with a non-existent budget but lots of in-house talent. I also have a day job, working for a fantastic SEO company. Everything I know about blogging you can be sure I recommend to paying clients as well as implementing on my own sites. Business blogging has changed, and if you have a business blog you need to embrace it.

It’s strange, but I think the rise of Twitter is partly to blame for the evolution of business blogging. You’ll see what I mean in a second. Twitter allows you to interact with your customers or clients on their level, face to face, and immediately. It gives you a platform to humanise your business. Twitter accounts that simply post up link after link to their own products get few followers. Twitter accounts that interact with people get lots, and there’s a reason for that. People love to talk to other people, not faceless organisations.

Humanisation Is Key

Go back to business blogging and the story is the same. If you post as ‘The Company’ why should anyone interact with your blog? People don’t talk to companies. Give your writers (or yourself) an author profile and give your company a human face.

One marketing manager I spoke to was worried because no-one in her company could write - they hired ghostwriters to provide good content. Not only that, they didn’t want to let just anyone be the face of the company. The solution? She’s now the face of the company blog - she doesn’t write the posts herself, but her name goes on them and people leave comments she can then interact with. This is probably a good solution for lots of large organisations who have brand identities to protect, and company guidelines to follow.

Don’t Be Afraid To Have An Opinion

For big companies this might be a problem, but if you own your own business you can say what you like! Don’t be afraid to make a statement, start a debate, or wade in on someone else’s. People only read things that are interesting, so there’s no point watering down content “just in case”. Take sides and make a stand for what you think about your industry. This is your company’s standpoint and it’s why your customers love you.

Give Your Readers What They Want

The great thing about blog comments is that they tell you what people are thinking. Use the comments to find out what your readers are interested in, and follow up with another blog post. If there was a lot of debate around one subject chances are people will come back to find out what happened next. Continue the stream of interaction, and you continue to have customers engaged in your brand.

Be Honest

Finally, don’t hide behind the company wall if something goes a bit wrong. It happens to everyone - suppliers are late, features don’t work properly, something is faulty. Your blog is the perfect platform to hold your hands up and say “oops, sorry guys”. A personal apology and real-time effort to fix the problem is worth far more than hiring a PR company to handle your bad press after the fact.

In summary then, think of your blog as the human side of your company - the bit where you get to talk to your customers as people. Ask opinions, build relationships, and help people to engage with your brand. A loyal customer base is the natural result.

This post was submitted by Zoe Piper from bethemiddleman.com, a new property service which cuts out estate agent fees. Zoe also writes at the bethemiddleman.com Blog.

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The Human Face of Business Blogging

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The Value Of A Blog Series

Sharon Hurley Hall — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 18:59:38 +0000

Image by Cedric’s Pics

Want to add value to your blog? An easy way to do this is by creating a series of posts. It doesn’t much matter what the series is about, provided that it is related to your main theme and is something people will want to follow. There are several benefits to creating a series on your blog.

Why Create A Series?

First, creating a series enables you to link several posts together, making each of them more relevant both to your visitors and to search engines. Second, creating a series is a good way to engage visitors to your blog and keep them coming back for more. Get someone to read your blog 7, 14, 21 or 28 days in a row and the chances are that they will become a confirmed subscriber and part of your blog’s community. Third, once you have a series, you can use it as the starting point for other information products (but I’ll get to that in a minute).

Instant Series Creation

Sometimes you can create an instant series, just by doing a little legwork. To do this, your best friends are your search box and your tag cloud. I tend to use the tag cloud because it’s easy to see at a glance which topics I’ve blogged about most. I can then use that to collect posts around a theme and link to them. Here’s an example of a post I wrote to bring together my posts on promotion. The Guest Blogging Guide on this blog is also an excellent example. At other times, you can create a series from scratch because you have a good idea. Our Getting Started In Blogging series is a good example of that.

Navigating The Posts

A key part of creating a series is making it easy to navigate among the different parts of the series. While you can manually create a list of links, this can be time consuming. Instead, use the In-Series or Organize Series Wordpress plugins which we mentioned in our post on boosting blog content.

Beyond The Blog

Once you have created a series, then it’s time to take it beyond the blog. Remember those information products I mentioned earlier? One of the easiest things to do with your series is turn it into an ebook. You can either play it straight and just collect what you have already written, or you can make it even more valuable, by adding resources or worksheets. Darren Rowse recently did this with his 31 Days to Build A Better Blog Series. Once the blog series was complete, he added a workbook with exercises to help people improve their blogs. You can do the same and will find that people who have enjoyed your series will be willing to pay for the added value you provide.

This post was submitted by Sharon Hurley Hall from Get Paid To Write Online.com.

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The Value Of A Blog Series

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FAQ’s from Old School Business Folk about Social Media

admin — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 20:56:38 +0000

Image by The Library of Congress

It is understandable that some senior business owners would be leery of the black magic that is social media. Print ads and face-to-face networking have worked for them for years. Why change things up?

“What is the ROI?”

This is one of the first questions we hear when introducing social media marketing (SMM). SMM is not measured the same way your typical marketing plan is. The value in social media can be based on the direct communication you have with your customers through social media. If it is your company reputation, consumer relationships or conversations that you would like to monitor, you will need to take a qualitative approach. Be sure to measure the positive feedback you receive. To measure your pagerank, sales or traffic you will need to use a quantitative approach with tools like Google Analytics or Wordtracker API.

“I’m already using email, now I have to learn to use Twitter?!”

Implementing a new marketing tool doesn’t sound so appealing when you have been using the same strategy for 25 years. However, it does not take too much brain power, time or money to use social media. If you can sign up for an email, then you can do the same for social networks. Once involved you will be able to hear what people have to say about everything from your investment in general to your product in particular. You can use this information to improve your company and even do a little damage control if there is negative information about your company floating around. If someone is bad mouthing your company, wouldn’t you like the chance to defend yourself? Social media offers this opportunity.

“Do I risk being overexposed?”

Well, that depends. If you are posting PDFs of your companies expenses from last year, then maybe. However, a company that reveals more about the personality behind the company will generate more interest in what they do. You need to show just the right amount of skin, so to speak. Companies spend most of their time being faceless and impersonal, but if we see pictures of the hard working people behind the logo we get that warm fuzzy feeling. So to answer your question, if you are not smart about what you put on your profile, yes, you in-particular risk over-exposure. Otherwise, your should be safe from any negative repercussions.

“I like to shake hands when I start a partnership with another business. You just can’t do that on the computer.”

This is true. So far, technology has not found a way to let us physically shake hands online. However, unless you have a ton of frequent flyer miles or a private jet ready to go, you can’t create partnerships in that way all across the country or world. The beauty of social media sites like LinkedIN and Facebook is that you are able to connect with other businesses easily and build strong relationships without having to court them on the golf course. If you are conscious about how you spend your time, building business partners and alliances on the Internet will surely fit your schedule. Maybe eventually you can make it out to see that guy in Hawaii to shake his hand, but in the meantime, a warm, friendly email will do.

So as you can see, there is no real reason to keep away from social media. It is inexpensive and takes up just a small amount of time each week.

This post was submitted by Rachel Helm, who is an Internet Marketing Specialist and Copywriter at the full service web management company, RocketFuel, LLC. in Memphis, TN.

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FAQ’s from Old School Business Folk about Social Media

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Personalize Your News With Guzzle.it

Sharon Hurley Hall — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 21:16:49 +0000

A short time ago, we reviewed Lazyfeed, a way to easily keep up with the latest on topics that interest you. Now there’s another entrant into this marketplace. It’s called Guzzle.it.

Getting Started

You don’t even have to sign up to start using Guzzle.it. The non-personalized home page features three columns: popular, headlines and images, shown in red, but you can add your own (shown in blue) till you get the news you want.

To add a topic, type a term into the prominent search box. Hit enter and it will move to the list in the middle column. Keep doing this till you are tracking all the topics that interest you, then move to the middle column to arrange your topics. You can even separate these into different sections by adding horizontal separators, which you can rename.

Display Options

The third column at the top of the page gives some display options. You can choose whether to display the title of the item alone, or its source too and if you want a topic navigation bar at the top of the page. It’s a good idea to enable this if you are following several topics. Click the ‘I’m done’ button and view your page.

Each topic has a list of eight recent items, but if that’s not enough, click on the little gear to expand the view and you can see many more. Hover over an item to see a short excerpt, or click on it to be taken to the original source. You can also choose to have an image view for a particular topic, though I didn’t find this very useful.

Niggles

This site works very well for popular topics. If you want to find out what’s happening on social media sites, then it’s right up to date. However, for hashtag searches and less obvious topics, Guzzle.it is not yet as good as Lazyfeed. It also doesn’t auto refresh and the update sources seem limited. It’s still early days, though, so Guzzle.it is one to watch. At the moment, though, Lazyfeed is a better option for me.

This post was submitted by Sharon Hurley Hall from Get Paid To Write Online.com.
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Personalize Your News With Guzzle.it

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BlogSynergy - Interview With Dan Harrison, Co-Founder Of The New Guest Blogging Platform

Charles — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 10:42:08 +0000

For anyone who’s actually tried guest blogging it can be very time-consuming actually trying to find blogs in your niche that accept guest posts. In the online marketing niche we compiled a list of 52 blogs, but lists such as these may no longer be needed thanks a new online site which has been launched - BlogSynergy.

BlogSynergy is a match-making service for bloggers who are looking for guest posts and those who would like to contribute guest posts. The interface is clean and very user-friendly. When logged in there’s a directory of all the blogs which have signed up so far, allowing you to easily find blogs related to your niche, and if you’re in need of guest posts then you can browse through the people who have put themselves forward as writers.

We caught up with Dan Harrison, one of the co-founders of BlogSynergy, to ask him a few questions about this new guest blogging platform. Dan’s an entrepreneur, a keen blogger with a number of blogs, including his personal blog at DanHarrison.co.uk, and also mentors people to help them run their own websites through Streamlined Thinking.

> How did you come up with the idea behind BlogSynergy?

Very simple. I had found that guest blogging was a great way to get good quality backlinks to your website, particularly from really good quality websites. However, I was contacting blogs on an individual basis (and still do), telling them about guest blogging and asking if I could write for them. It’s labour-intensive work. I have a repetitive strain injury (RSI), meaning I end up in lots of pain using the computer all day long. Anything I can do to reduce that time is a good thing, especially avoiding writing lots of emails! Therefore I wanted a tool to make it easier to find blogs who were keen on guest content.

Since it was a big project, I approached Michael Gibson of MGDigital to help me with the development effort. Michael is responsible for the great user interface and design. So the ideas are mostly mine, the interface is all his creation. Thanks to him, we got the site completed in a few months. Much faster than I could myself, due to the RSI I mentioned previously.

> What are your goals with BlogSynergy? Do you see it as a standalone service or part of a future range of blogging-related service sites?

BlogSynergy will be specifically tailored to guest blogging and nothing else. There are lots of blog tools around that handle other services, but none that handles guest blogging specifically and so easily. I want BlogSynergy to be the defacto source for finding high quality blogs for guest content.

> Guest blogging is something that we’ve advocated for a long time here at PiggyBankPie, given its many benefits including link building, generating traffic, and as a way to build your reputation in an industry. In your opinion what’s the main benefit of guest blogging?

The biggest benefit in my opinion is building a community around your blog within your niche. So by guest blogging, you boost your traffic because you’re putting your content in front of an audience that’s interested in the same subject matter as your blog. You can then build a relationship with those visitors, and just as importantly, with the blog owner. Having a relationship with other website owners in your niche can be very rewarding in terms of how you can help each other out. That ultimately means you both grow your readership!

However, traffic and link building are very strong benefits on their own. Let’s not forget that!

> There are those people who see guest blogging as a time-consuming version of article marketing. How would you respond to that?

I’d rephrase that point by saying that guest blogging is worthwhile, unlike most article marketing. The trouble with article marketing, particularly with submitting articles to directories, is that you’re encouraging others to re-use that article by using it on their site. Duplicate content is a bad idea generally. Also, I find that articles (from directories) are very bloated and fluffy, and lack real quality.

However, guest blogging is all about quality and relevance to the host blog and its readers. Therefore you will always gain more visitors as a result of guest blogging, simply because you’re ensuring the article is something people want to read.

A close friend frequently reminds me that “the worthwhile things in life are never easy”. That completely applies to guest blogging.

> Going back to BlogSynergy, the types of services which match up webmasters often end up suffering from an inundation of low quality, effectively spam, websites. How do you intend to ensure that both the guest blogs and the writers are of a good quality?

I personally review the blogs that are submitted to the system to ensure we get quality blogs. If a blog is spammy, I reject it with an explanation for the blog owner. We have a basic feedback system in place that allows writers and blog owners to leave feedback for each other. As time goes on, this will become a strong indicator of blogs and writers that show a high degree of quality. Effectively this means that the users of the system will weed out the low quality writers and blogs with time.

> BlogSynergy is currently free of charge and you mention that further down the line there may be a small fee for advanced and heavy users. Can you give an insight into how this will be measured and what kind of premium features might be available?

We only have a basic idea of pricing for now, as it’s our intention to consult the community before introducing the fee. However, the free account will be limited to the number of blogs you can list, in addition to how many blogs you can request to write for. Those members who pay a small monthly fee will have no restrictions.

We welcome all thoughts and ideas on how this should work.

> Finally, the site’s only just launched but do you have any future updates or new services already lined up?

We have lots of ideas! However, we’ve gone for the most useful subset of features to start with. Blog statistics, a user feedback profile, widgets to link to BlogSynergy directly to your profile and an affiliate scheme for fee-paying members are among the ideas on our to-do list. However, we encourage ideas from the community, and they’ll get added to the mix too.

If you have ideas for BlogSynergy, please let us know via the contact us page.

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BlogSynergy - Interview With Dan Harrison, Co-Founder Of The New Guest Blogging Platform

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Why Streamy Won’t Replace Friendfeed For Me

Sharon Hurley Hall — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 15:45:21 +0000

This post has been submitted by Sharon Hurley Hall from Get Paid To Write Online.com.

When ReadWriteWeb announced that Streamy could be the next Friendfeed, I decided to check it out. Like many others, I’m not totally sure that the integration of Friendfeed and Facebook is a good thing so I’m thinking ahead about options for social media aggregation.

Getting Started With Streamy

It was easy to get started with Streamy. I logged in with my Facebook credentials and it automatically created a new account for me. Then it was time to link my other social media accounts. I was able to link Twitter and Friendfeed, and could also have linked Digg, Flickr and others. For some reason, I had to reauthorize Streamy to add my Facebook streams, but once that was done, I could access each one from a button in the top navigation bar. Once I had added the accounts, I was able to find the few friends who were using it.

Useful Features

Streamy also works as an instant message client, allowing you to add logins for MSN, AIM, Yahoo, and Gtalk. For some reason, it didn’t import all my contacts, nor did it aggregate them, so I think you would be better off with something like Digsby, Pidgin or Meebo.

A potentially useful feature is the ability to add the feeds you read regularly. You can pick from some popular choices, or add them manually. Then you get a list of the latest news on your home page. Streamy also has groups, though none of these seem very active.

Customizing The Home Page

Once all that is done, you can customize the home page, by adding columns and widgets for the bits of services you use most often. I added three columns so that I could see my Twitter home, mentions and direct messages at the top of my screen, but left the Friendfeed and Facebook defaults as they were.

One good aspect of Streamy is that when you expand an entry you get access to the tools you would use on the original site. For example, an expanded Twitter entry has reply and retweet links (though no stars for favorites) and Facebook and Friendfeed entries offer you the chance to like or comment. That’s great, but is it enough?

The Verdict

While Streamy has potential, I don’t see it as a viable Friendfeed replacement at the moment. The link to my Facebook account seemed temperamental and the site failed several times during a single day. Plus, it’s just not as easy to use as Friendfeed. Instead, I think I’ll go back to using services individually and aggregate my content through Storytlr.

Sharon Hurley Hall
Get Paid To Write Online.com

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Why Streamy Won’t Replace Friendfeed For Me

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A Look at Affiliate Theme - The Wordpress Theme For Affiliates

Charles — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 18:50:33 +0000

We’ve touched on affiliate marketing a couple of times with our affiliate marketing starter guide and a guide to CPA marketing.

However, unless you’re a web designer and good with code then you’ll struggle to get started with affiliate marketing in a big way as it’s costly to pay for even the most basic landing page sites, especially when many of those sites will prove to be unprofitable.

This is where Affiliate Theme comes in. It’s by far the best website builder that I’ve used. Previously I reviewed Moonfruit but after a while it’s limitations really started to become a problem, with its flash-based editor proving to be a little too inflexible.

On the other hand I’ve been using Affiliate Theme since March and it’s still as good as ever. It uses Wordpress and has one main advantage over other website builders - Affiliate Theme has been built from the ground-up for affiliate marketers.

If you’re looking for blog themes or a feature-packed website then Affiliate Theme isn’t for you. However, if you’re looking for a quick way to set up professional looking landing pages and review websites then it’s ideal.

Affiliate Theme Features

- Change the layout of your landing page with the click of a button. Six different layouts are available to choose from.

- Excellent customization options by instantly changing colours and backgrounds. If you’re comfortable coding then you can also edit the source code to get the perfect result (this isn’t something I’ve done).

- As its based on Wordpress you can fully utilize all the Wordpress plugins which are out there.

- First class support. There are video tutorials, a 5-step explanation of how to install Wordpress and Affiliate Theme, as well as a superb support forum. All my questions have been answered promptly, they’re very receptive to suggestions and more than happy to put together some custom code to help you achieve exactly what you want.

How To Get Started With Affiliate Theme

It’s a 4-step process to get started. The first time I found it a little tricky, but once you go through it once it then becomes very simple.

1) You need somewhere to purchase and host your domains. Affiliate Theme recommended Bluehost and I haven’t been at all disappointed. They offer a free domain when you sign-up for hosting and the hosting itself is extremely reliable.

2) Install Wordpress on your domain. Bluehost offer one-click Wordpress installation in their cpanel area through a link-up with SimpleScripts.

3) Uploading Affiliate Theme to your domain. I found this the trickiest part, using the FileZilla FTP solution to upload Affiliate Theme to the blog. However, once you’ve done it once it’s straightforward to repeat on other domains.

4) Activate Affiliate Theme in your Wordpress login area and begin customizing your site.

Affiliate Theme Examples Sites

I’ve set up quite a few sites with Affiliate Theme, including PersonalisedBirthdayGifts.co.uk and AdoptAnOrangutan.org.uk, and you can check out a few of their examples on their test drive page.

How Much Does It Cost?

When I signed up there were only three options but since then a 4th option has been added which includes free setup and installation. In summary:

Option 1 - $97.00 - allows you to use Affiliate Theme on a single domain.
Option 2 - $147 - use on an unlimited number of domains
Option 3 - $197 - the same as Option 2 except that you have access to a number of free USB header graphics
Option 4 - $297 - the same as Option 3 except it comes with free setup and installation

They are all one-time payments and you can find out all the features in each option here. I purchased Option 3 but am yet to use any of the USB header graphics as they haven’t quite fitted into any of the niche’s I’ve targeted. I certainly wouldn’t recommend going for Option 1 but any of the others are a good choice depending on your particular preference.

Limitations

Affiliate Theme does have its limitations. If you’re looking to build out a complex website, develop a great design, or start a blog then I’d say that it’s not for you. It’s great for developing landing pages, either for specific niche sites or those to be promoted via PPC, but it’s not the tool to build a blog or Web 2.0 site.

If you’re looking to start a blog or content website using Wordpress then we’d recommend Thesis and as an alternative Artisteer also looks to be worth a go.

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A Look at Affiliate Theme - The Wordpress Theme For Affiliates

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Feed Reading Gets Easier With Lazyfeed

Sharon Hurley Hall — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 12:26:03 +0000

This post has been submitted by Sharon Hurley Hall from Get Paid To Write Online.com.

Keeping up with your feed reader can be quite a chore, especially if you have hundreds of feeds. Lazyfeed aims to make that process easier. This web application is intended to help you find stuff that really interests you.

Setting Up Lazyfeed

To get started, add some of your social media and networking information, such as your Delicious bookmarks, Twitter account and blog. Lazyfeed polls those to extract tags on the stuff that interests you. It also pulls in other topics relevant to those tags. All results update in real time, making it a great way to find topical content. As Louis Gray pointed out in his review, Lazyfeed blows Technorati out of the water. It also has a constantly updated hot topics list on the home page - just click on a link to see what’s being said.

Topics For The Lazy Me

I tested Lazyfeed by adding my Twitter account, three blogs I write for and one blog that I’m interested in. I got a list of ‘topics for the lazy me’ based on what the blogs had covered recently. I discovered on subsequent visits that this list updates, giving you the chance to add new topics to your main tag list. This is located at the top left of your home page. This section is quite addictive, and I find myself adding new topics to watch whenever I return to Lazyfeed. Another way to enter topics is to search for terms in the ‘what interests you?’ search box and add them to your personal Lazyfeed.

Your Lazyfeed

Once setup is complete, check out the latest on the topics that interest you by clicking on the tag title. The main content window will show a list of the latest posts on this topic, and will also provide a list of related topics that you can add to your feed. Click on a link to view it without leaving Lazyfeed (if the blog provides full feeds) and to have the chance to save it and watch it for live updates.

A Discovery Engine

After you look at a stream, it remains greyed out until there is something new, though you can always click on a link to see old posts on that theme. This is a great way to keep up with multiple topics quickly. My one niggle is that one of the hashtags I was monitoring didn’t seem up to date. Apart from that, Lazyfeed works well as way of quickly discovering new blog content. It’s still in beta, so you’ll need an invite to try it, but it’s certainly worth it.

Sharon Hurley Hall
Get Paid To Write Online.com

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Feed Reading Gets Easier With Lazyfeed

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