Winning the Web on Alltop – A New Milestone?
October 28, 2008 - Written by Gyutae Park
By now, I’m sure you’ve at least heard of Guy Kawasaki’s latest online project, Alltop. Alltop is an “online magazine rack of popular topics” that updates stories every hour from the RSS feeds of popular blogs around the net. Most important categories are included and sorted in alphabetical order and the concept is pretty much the same as that of popurls.
Technically speaking, Alltop is super simple and can easily be replicated by any web geek working in a basement. All it really does is aggregate RSS feeds and display recent stories in each category. In fact, when I saw Guy at the Elite Retreat in San Francisco, he confirmed that the site only cost a few thousand dollars to create and run. You can probably hire someone on elance to create something similar for you.
Before you start bashing on Alltop, it’s important to note that aggregators are valuable to visitors. People appreciate convenience and will reward sites that provide it. For example, Google search simply organizes content on other websites and now it’s a $100 billion business. In the same way, Guy is looking to leverage other people’s content and monetize the traffic. Minimal expenses, almost no effort, and a pretty good flow of income. That’s pretty ingenious if you ask me.
The business model is very interesting, but I wouldn’t recommend starting a similar site unless you enjoy uphill battles. Guy is a well-known venture capitalist and has a huge network of contacts that he was able to utilize and bring Alltop exposure. Most people wouldn’t be very receptive to another copycat entering the market unless you have a new unique angle.
That being said, I bribed asked Guy to include Winning the Web in the Blogging category. Here it is…
I guess that’s confirmation that I kick ass. Unfortunately, there are over 50 blogs included and Winning the Web is listed last. In 1 week’s time, there haven’t been any referrals to WTW from Alltop and I would imagine that most tech-savvy audiences probably wouldn’t use Alltop on a regular basis.
Is your blog listed on Alltop?
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Maybe it’s the quality of your headlines.
Thanks Guy.. managed to get a comment out of you as well.
Congratulations!
Maybe you do kick ass
Booyah..
Now that Winning the Web is on Alltop, where do I stand a chance?
It’s great to be part of it but let’s see how well it converts… Good luck, buddy…
Yan
I’m not expecting Alltop to bring in much traffic. If anything, it’s more of a trophy for my ego.
Maybe you can talk Guy into including you too. Good luck!
I think it’s pretty obvious why GUY added GYUtae…
Haha, good one Tyler.. Guy could be my long lost Asian cousin or something.
Congrats Gyutae. Hopefully it sends you some traffic
Hmm.. nope. None that I can see so far. Was Blogging Tips included on the Alltop list? I just got bumped up higher.. yeehaw.
Good one Gyutae, I’m going to have a look at Alltop, hadn’t come across it before. Let us know if it starts providing traffic.
It’s just a cool site created by a celebrity venture capitalist. That alone makes it worth looking at. As for traffic potential, I’m really not expecting much.
Instead of using Alltop I find it more convenient to just subscribe to RSS feeds using Google Reader. I can sort my categories and read whatever I want from one spot. The Alltop website is buggy in my Firefox browser and it even causes it to freeze sometimes whenever I’m scrolling. I guess it’s great for discovering new blogs!
Ditto. I prefer using Google Reader to read everything in one location. Like you said though, Alltop is good for discovering new blogs. Plus a lot of the “normal” people don’t know what a feed reader is yet.
You don’t seem to be listed last anymore, although there is still room to move up.
Just noticed that as well.. Whoo hoo, Guy Kawasaki gave me a promotion.
Now if only he’d be willing to fund my projects..
“Google search simply organizes content on other websites and now it’s a $100 billion business” It’s an amazing number!
I guess it’s nice for a backlink or two, but otherwise I guess it’s very much like a google search result, the first 2 matter and the rest gets a bit of traffic.
Heh, you’re probably right. My guess is that the entire Blogging page on Alltop doesn’t generate much traffic. It’s nice to have though.
Good for you and i hope it isnt just good for your ego but also for your bottom line
That’s great that you are listing on the blogging section, maybe soon you will rise higher on the list
Congrats Gyutae
I’m late to congratulate you, but you’re the man!
i hate this alltop thing.
So many people are spamming me about alltop in twitter.
guy seems to have taken twitter too as the promotion means..