Spotback

With the blog explosion on the web, it's hard to keep up with all the things posted on even selected blogs. I am a big believer in Bloglines, but I've had trouble with that site in some browsers so I'm not able to keep up on my reading. Also, although many stories propogate through the blogosphere so you'll likely see them on some popular sites, the problem with a site like Bloglines is your focus may limit exposure and you might miss something of interest. Because of these limitations I started looking for alternatives.

I recently signed up for a free account at Spotback (now in Beta). It's a news aggregator of sorts that has more of the feel of a newspaper. Stories are organized in categories like general news, technology, science, sports, etc. As you browse through the headlines and read stories, you can rate the stories. The software uses your ratings to customize which stories appear on your page. So rather than signing up for a particular feed, you're being fed stories in categories that match your interests.

I'm curious if others have tried this site or similar services. I have only started making ratings, but it didn't take long for stories to show up from some familiar sites like BoingBoing, MAKE magazine, and others. Hopefully as the number of ratings increases, the story selection will improve.