Alltop Tracks Hawaii
Alltop, the latest web venture by Hawaii-born entrepreneur, author, and one-time Apple evangelist Guy Kawasaki, today added a new channel devoted to Hawaii.
Alltop offers quick, clean overviews of headlines from a variety of subjects, from venture capital to music to gaming. Described as "dashboards" or "virtual magazine racks," the site's pages allow you to easily browse the day's hottest topics.
The hawaii.alltop.com page features a mix of independent blogs and mainstream media outlets based in or focused on the Aloha State. Writings by investigative journalist Ian Lind appear alongside headlines from the Honolulu Star-Bulletin. Alex Salkever's travel-centric Hawaiirama is included, as is Raising Islands, the blog of veteran science reporter Jan Tenbruggencate.
The Hawaii collection was curated by local blogger and Kawasaki staffer L.P. "Neenz" Faleafine, who also assists with Kawasaki's Truemors site. Neenz notes that while headline aggregation is hardly anything new for geeks, Alltop aims to make the concept accessible to everyone. And that was evident in its early focus.
"Alltop was originally to be an aggregation of celebrity gossip sites, but that idea evolved into the 'online magazine rack' that it is today: a collection of the all of the top sites, neatly categorized for the non-RSS user," Neenz explains. "You know the majority of the world!"
As for the Hawaii page? "The sites featured are not your typical tourist magnets. (For that visit Travel.alltop.com.) The hand-picked sites feature news of and about Hawaii from the mainstream media, citizen journalists and some of Hawai'i's top bloggers."
I was certainly honored to find Hawaii Blog among the sources included. But the island magazine rack isn't a static thing. If you know of a website that would mix well, just send Alltop an e-mail, or get in touch with Neenz!