Popurls has quickly grown to be one of my favorite websites helping me keep track what’s buzzing around the web. It’s a simple site that aggregates popular social services and websites such as Digg, Del.icio.us, Reddit, Flickr, and more. Each site gets its own area on the page listing the latest items and users can hover over items to get a summary. It’s great because it gives you a quick glimpse at what’s buzzing around the web and beats having to subscribe to all of the sites.

It’s clear people like these kind of sites and Popurls has seemed to start a chain or a class of these sites carrying on the concept. I’m not exactly sure what to call these sites as they are basically one page feed aggregators, but I suppose it’s safe to say they present the links, media, and search in a portal like fashion. So, I am going to call these sites “portals” throughout the post rather then saying, “Single Page Aggregator.” Please, if you know of a better name to call these sites, feel free to add your input.

There are two portals that I check up on numerous times a day: Popurls and Digg View. Popurls for the latest buzz and Digg View for an easy to read overview of activity at Digg. Just recently a new portal popped up called Original Signal and Steve Rubel had mentioned in a post on the new portal, “There seems to be a new emerging class of sites like these that aggregate feeds for you.” I started thinking about it and agree that there are quite a bit of these sites now, some covering buzz and others specific topics, and so I decided to take a look around and see what I can find.

After compiling a list of portals, I grouped them into categories and decided to share them with you. Hopefully there will be at least one that will be of interest to you. You can find in my list of portals: Tracking Buzz and News (Digg, Del.icio.us, etc.), Tracking Web 2.0, Specialty Topics (Gaming, Tech Deals, Apple, etc.), Design Related News and Showcase, Media Aggregators, Build Your Own, and lastly, Tag Search Engines.

My Two Top Picks

Popurls: Most of you are probably familiar with this one. Popurls has the goal of bringing you the latest buzz around the web aggregating popular social services and websites and display them all on one page. Viewers can view popular headlines from sites such as Digg, Del.icio.us, Reddit, Newsvine, and TailRank as well as keep up on media from Flickr, Youtube, Odeo, iFilm, and more. If your trying to find what’s new and buzzing on the web, Popurls is the place to be and most definitely takes place on my Firefox toolbar.

Digg View: I’m a big fan of Digg and try to keep up with the latest popular headlines as much as possible. I come across many helpful articles because of Digg relating to Web 2.0, web programming, database optimization, and other tech related topics, but I also use Digg to keep up with videos and gaming. However, rather then using Digg’s website to track popular headlines, I use Digg View. Digg View offers a one page overview of the seven Digg categories showing popular headlines during different time-frames of the day. The site makes it very easy to keep up with what’s popular on Digg and also marks stories that you haven’t seen in orange. I love it. I sit here all day refreshing the page over and over waiting for new orange headlines to appear so I can view the latest popular story on Digg.

Tracking Buzz (What’s Hot) and News

The following portals include the latest popular links and news from various social bookmarking sites, blogs, and news sources. You can expect to see these portals aggregating sites like Digg, Del.icio.us, and Reddit. Personally, I’ll be sticking with Popurls, but maybe you prefer different.

• TheWebList: “A digest of the latest links other web users are visiting right now!” It’s basically the same thing as Popurls, but without the media. It provides bookmarking and search options and summaries when hovering headlines.
• popfeeds: popfeeds is a very clean and simple overview of popular feeds. If it weren’t for Popurls, this would probably be the one I would use because it’s very fast loading and gets straight to the point.
• ViralBabble: Although it isn’t all that pretty, one feature that I like about ViralBabble is archiving. Navigating to the bottom of the page will be a link to an archive section where you can actually view snapshots of previous days. So if you were out of the house yesterday and wanted to see what was buzzing, you can easily do so with ViralBabble.
• PopFeedo: By the makers of Feedo Style and powered by Feedo Style, PopFeedo aggregates and displays six popular feeds including Digg, Del.icio.us, Wired Technology, Reddit, Slashdot, and Yahoo’s Top News.
• 01b (Source): I probably shouldn’t be mentioning this one as it will probably be shutting down any day now, but 01b is Thomas Marben’s first creation that aggregates sites similar to his now popular, Popurls. Except this one aggregates a whole lot more sources, some in German.

Specialty Topics

You may be thinking, “Alright, why are you writing a post about these portals? Don’t they all show the same thing?” No! There are actually portals built for specific topics, such as gaming and photography. If you have an interest in a certain topic, maybe one of these can help you stay on top of relating news. If not, head down to the “Build Your Own,” area of this post.

• WiiNintendo: Nintendo fans, this one is for you. Excited about the new Nintendo Wii? If so, bookmark WiiNintendo to keep up with the latest news from Nintendo, The Wiire, Joystiq, and 1UP as well as videos on Wii from YouTube.
• Mashfot: Mashfot is all about photography. With Mashfot, users can find the latest news and popular links relating to photography and view the latest photographs from various photo sharing websites. View photos from Flickr and 23, news from Digg and Blogs, and links from Del.icious and Blinklist.
• PopDeal: Here is one for all of you tech-savvy individuals that want to save a buck or two on tech hardware. PopDeals brings you the latest tech deals from around the web by aggregating numerous websites specifically meant for deals on products, including DealNews, TechBargains, DealCatcher, and more.
• Don’t Meet Your Heroes: “Compilation of CSS and Web Standards related resources and news feeds from sources around the net.” The site claims to aggregate CSS and Web Standard sites only, although you will see a mix of other sources relating to Web 2.0, programming, Ajax, and more. Nice and simple page.
• xmlhttprequest: If you are a web developer, you can probably guess what this portal is about. Yes, Ajax. Find links to websites and news relating to developing with Ajax, keep up with sites like Ajaxian and ThinkVitamin, and keep up with Google’s JavaScript Newsgroup.
• MacScour: By the makers of Don’t Meet Your Heroes, MacScour scours the web for Apple news and Mac software updates. Keep up with latest news, software updates, rumors, reviews, and more.
• BozPages: Alex Bosworth of SourceLabs has created a neat site that basically allows you to make your own Popurls like page, or as he calls them, “simple one-off pages of RSS feeds.” He also provides some that he has created that aggregates feeds relating to Gaming, Web 2.0, Movies, Ajax, Google, and more. Only problem is that the pages seem to run a bit slow at times.
• Update: Original Signal Gadgets: Just as I published this post, Original Signal has created another site built to aggregate gadget related sites. The site includes Gizmondo, Engadget, CNET’s Gadget Blog, CrunchGear, and more.

Tracking Web 2.0

You’ve probably guessed this category was coming. The following portals aggregate blogs covering Web 2.0. If you like keeping up with all the new startups and products but don’t like subscribing to so many feeds, you may want to keep track of one of these sites. My personal favorite is Original Signal.

• Original Signal: Launched this month, Original Signal aggregates 15 Web 2.0 blogs showing recent posts and summaries. What’s also neat is that if you have visited the site before, new posts will stand out in bold the next time you visit. Original Signal is also by the makers of Digg View.
• Web 2.0 Workgroup: The Web 2.0 Workgroup is a small network of sites covering Web 2.0, which thankfully Solution Watch is a part of, and has a main page that displays each site aggregating three latest posts.
• Web 2.0 Reference: Web 2.0 Reference aggregates feeds relating to Web 2.0 and organizes them neatly on one page where you can sort them by Source or Category.

Design Related News and Showcase

Even though I am a web programmer, I’m definitely a sucker for anything design. I’ve known about a couple of these portals, but I grabbed my brother, Tim Benzinger, who is a graphic designer (also designed this blog), and had him help me gather some more for you.

• Most Inspired: Need inspiration? Check out Most Inspired, a portal that aggregates design galleries and showcases designs by hovering over each headline. I can spend my whole day on this site looking through all of the excellent design work.
• Enure Feeds: Enure includes feeds from popular design sites including k10k, lounge72, australian INfront, News Today, and more. Enure does not necessarily aggregate its sources but includes them using iframes. Nevertheless, it’s a nice portal that has some high profile design sources.
• Design Feeds: Design Feeds is a new one to me and I love it. It has many sources displayed in iframes, some that are galleries with visuals, others that are news relating to design and web development. The owner did a nice job at aggregating each source in individual frames styled to the sources appearance. I’m sure any designer can appreciate this site.
• Linkgrab: Linkgrab is a simple site that allows you to pick three design related websites and retrieve links from each. You can change the feeds at anytime and keep checking back. It would be nice if it allowed you to display more then three on a page.

Media Aggregators

For those of you that are interested in keeping up with popular videos, these portals may be for you. They are one page sites that display popular videos, with thumbnails, from video sharing sites. Warning, it is easy to waste hours of your free time watching videos ;-).

• The Internet TV Charts: “The Internet TV charts tracks the most popular online video clips each week from four leading Internet TV sites. All the best video clips, on one page.” Simple site showing popular Google and YouTube videos as well as links to Digg (video topic) and Videosift.
• vdiddy: Neat site that allows you to view videos from 12 different video sources. You can select a site and then watch the videos directly in vdiddy.
• Magg: Created with recently launched Dapper, Magg aggregates the latest and greatest movies from various video sharing sites. You can also search through the aggregated sites for videos.

Build Your Own!

Haven’t found any portals that caught your interest? Then build your own! I have three methods for you. You can use services offering one page aggregators, use your favorite start page site (ie: Netvibes), or use a simple Tag Search site and bookmark it for later reference.

• One Page Aggregators: I know of two services that can help you make your own portal in a matter of minutes. The first is SpeedyFeed (Example: Popular) and it basically allows you to import your favorite feeds and have them all displayed on one page in a similar format to Popurls. The second option is BozPages, which I had mentioned earlier. Simply head over to the website and add your favorite feeds to get a one page aggregator.
• Start Pages: You can also make your own by using a start page. I personally like to use Netvibes, but any start page will do. 3spots has an extensive list of start pages worth checking out. Also, if you are a Netvibes user, don’t forget about the Netvibes Ecosystem. You can add tabs on various topics to your account in a single click.
• Tag Search: The last method I am aware of is by using tag search sites. Now, it can’t be just any tag search site (well, it can if you want), but one that allows you to bookmark and retrieve results from multiple sources, preferably blog searches and social services. My favorite one is Newzpile. You can also use TagJag and the recently released, TagFetch. Just make a search, bookmark the page, and check back later for more recent headlines.

That concludes my findings! Hope you have found a portal that interests you. If you know of any other similar sites, feel free to comment below. And again, my two top picks are: Popurls and Digg View. Popurls provides me with more then enough of the latest buzz around the web and Digg View compliments Digg so well making it easy to keep up with popular headlines. If I had to choose a third, I would have to go with Most Inspired because it provides tons of inspirational work to browse through.

Like this article? Digg it!

Menutopia is a new restaurant review community launched last week bringing thousands of United States restaurants and menus to your computer. Menutopia offers its users a site to review and rate restaurants, search for menus, and even order food online from over 1,000 delivery restaurants in New York. Currently, users can find menus for restaurants in Manhattan, Brooklyn, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Boston, Washington DC, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Miami, although some areas may have more menus then others.

Menutopia is much more then just a menu site. You can browse restaurants by neighborhood, cuisine, or tags (more like categories) and filter out restaurants that serve breakfast, lunch, or dinner and more. When viewing a restaurant, you can not only view the restaurants menu, but to learn about the restaurant by reading user reviews and ratings. You can also retrieve a restaurants contact information, see where the restaurant is located on a Google Map, learn if reservations are required, find open hours, and even order food online if available.

Signing up to Menutopia also brings more functionality to the site. When logging in, users can add restaurants to a favorites list, make reviews and ratings, add and track friends, and create lists of resturants to, for example, note pizza places in a specific area. When a user creates a list, they are also given the option to share it with the community by making them public.

Menutopia is a neat service, although I have no use for it because I don’t live in any of the supported areas. However, I found it easy to find restuarants, especially when using Menutopia’s smart search, and feel if I lived in one of the supported areas, it could help out greatly. I also found the interface to be very well designed. The user reviews and ratings appear to be accurate and there’s already quite a bit of content on the site. Similar services include MenuTree and GopherNow.

Update: Sorry, jumped the gun a bit on available locations and rewards. Dan of Menutopia has informed me that they are only live with Manhattan at this time and other cities are coming in the next week or two. Although, when I go into account settings and set my account to a different area, it appears I can browse through restaurants (IE: San Francisco brings up 1,797 menus). Dan has also told me that the rewarding functionality is not live yet but will be once everything is settled. If that’s the case, they should probably get rid of the Learn More about Earning Rewards section.

Update: Removed part of review on rewards to not build up expectations, as requested by Menutopia. They also said I was able to access these other pages because of a little mixup that occurred on the site and they should be fixed now.

Crazy Egg, the highly anticipated click tracking service from ACS, launched today. With Crazy Egg, users install a code on their website to track every click a visitor makes on links, forms, advertisements, and flash documents. Results can be displayed in either an overlay or heatmap form giving the user a visual on click activity around the website. This kind of data is very useful for website owners as it can help them learn how their visitors navigate their website and how they can improve and optimize its usability.

Before we get started, let me explain how Crazy Egg works. Crazy Egg can be setup on any website, whether it be a static or dynamic site (blogs included), and is to be used as a tool to test your websites click activity. When setting up a site, you set a length of time for your test session and Crazy Egg will then provide you with a code to insert in your sites body. The next time someone visits your site and clicks on a link, input to a form, advertisment, or flash document, Crazy Egg will record its position. You then can view the click reports during and after the testing session.

The first page you will see when logging in is the Dashboard (Note: numbers blurred in the above screenshot are from a master Crazy Egg test account and are not all in relation to my site). This is where you get an overview of all your pages that you are watching with Crazy Egg. It is also where you go to add a page to your account for testing. Each page listed provides you with details on when the page was last tested, how many tests you have ran, and its current status (actively running or not). Selecting a page from the list will make a new area slide down providing you with a screenshot of the site and basic statistics including number of visits and clicks during the testing duration. To get to the more detailed reports showing the overlay and heatmap, click on the “View Results” button of any page listed.

Viewing a pages report will bring you to a new section of Crazy Egg with a toolbar at the top and your site right below. At default, the overlay reporting method will be shown and if clicks have already been recorded, you will see colored markers around the site. These markers point out where the clicks have been made and will be colored based on the percentage of clicks (blue for low percentage, red for high percentage). Selecting a marker will border the clicked object and pop open a little percentage bar showing the amount of clicks made on that object. You can also open all markers at once by selecting the gear icon on the toolbar and clicking, “open all.”

The next reporting method is, List. Selecting the list button on the toolbar will have a box slide down that will show a table listing all objects that have been clicked. Sorted by the amount of clicks, each row will show the element clicked, what type of element it is (a, strong, span, etc.), the amount of clicks, and the percentage of clicks. Viewing results in the list format makes it very easy for you to quickly grab the names of the most clicked elements, or least clicked, and makes for a quick overview, which at times is easier to view then markers around the site.

The last method, and my favorite method, for viewing results is using the heatmap option. Heatmaps are commonly seen in usability tests and eye tracking tests where the site is overlayed with a grey layer showing high concentrated areas in bright colors ranging from blue to red. Crazy Egg decided to use the same technique to show what elements are most clicked. Blue colored areas have a low percentage of clicks, while red colored areas have a high percentage of clicks. Using the heatmap makes it very easy for you to see what elements around your site receives the most attention and what areas of your site may need some improvement.

Now, let’s say that based on the results from the reports, you made some changes to your website and you want to start another test. This is no problem and Crazy Egg makes this very easy for you. Head over to the Dashboard and select your page. You will see a link below the page name that says, “test a new version.” Clicking this will bring you to a form where you can enter the amount of time you want your new test to run and click save. You will then be directed back to the dashboard where you will see that your page has multiple tests. On the right, after selecting the page, you will see the most recent test on top with the older ones following below allowing you to easily view results for any test you have had under that page.

Crazy Egg offers four plans to choose from when signing up ranging from Free to $99/month. For some, the free plan is all that will be needed as it allows for tracking 5,000 visits/month with 2 pages, which I feel is plently for basic website testing. One downside with the free account is that statistics wont be shown in real-time (live reporting). On the other hand, it may get a little pricy but offering 25,000-250,000 monthly visitors and unlimited pages with live reporting.

All in all, Crazy Egg is a great product providing helpful data to any website owner. I’ve been anticipating its launch since I first learned about it on TechCrunch and Mashable back in March, and I must say, it was well worth the wait. I’m impressed with how simple Crazy Egg makes it for website owners to visualize visitor click activity. You can use Crazy Egg for testing new designs, structure changes, ad placement, page content, and more. Based on results, website owners can learn how visitors see their site and how they should improve it. I will definitely be using this for all future usability tests.

Loowa, launched earlier this month, is a nice and simple social networking site. At first impression, Loowa seems to be a site similar to Who Are You (TechCrunch’s Review) which allows anyone to associate their email address to basic information and a photo. However, Loowa is much more providing users with a complete and customizable profile. You can look at it as a simplified and cleaned up version of MySpace.

One interesting tidbit that Mashable had mentioned is that the creator, Scott Fitzhugh, actually launched Loowa on Youtube (watch the video). In Scott’s case, this is a great move because he not only creates products, but runs a popular video blog bringing around 40,000 views to his video in 10 days. I think he’s on to something. Anyways, let’s take a look at what Loowa has to offer.

While Loowa may not be as feature packed as other social networking sites, it appears to be off to a great start. Once registering with your email address, you will be asked to create your profile. Profiles are pretty basic and fairly customizable, allowing you to include a photograph, name, and information about yourself as well as HTML, CSS, and other objects (widgets and videos). Any user that comes across your profile can then friend you, browse photos that you have uploaded, send you messages, and leave comments on your graffiti wall, which is a small discussion area at the bottom of all profiles. Viewing Scott’s profile also shows more functionality coming soon including blogging, linkbacks, topic based discussions, content flagging, and more.

Loowa also has a fun section inspired by Digg Spy called, The Loowa Spy. The Loowa Spy is something that I haven’t seen in a social networking site of this nature before. The page updates each second displaying the latest activity on Loowa, including profile views, commenting, and photo viewing. While the spy section is just a small part of Loowa, it’s fun to browse to every now and then and helps with finding other Loowa users to possibly meet.

All in all, I feel Loowa is a well crafted and simple social network. It’s certainly no MySpace functionality wise, but it’s easy and fun to use and seems to be off to a pretty decent start. Users can connect with friends, create customized profiles, upload photos, and message eachother with more features coming soon.

Lastly, feel free to check out my Loowa profile. If you create an account, don’t be shy and leave a message!

Traineo, launched yesterday, is a weight loss and fitness site designed to help track and reach your weight loss goals. If you’ve tried to lose weight before, you would know that it’s no simple task. It takes a lot of time and dedication and you’ve got to be highly motivated. Traineo aims help make the process easier by providing users with a simple website for recording and tracking their weight loss progress. Traineo users can also invite friends and family as motivators to help cheer you on, or yell at you, as the days pass by. Let’s take a look.

The way Traineo works is simple. At the end of the day, users login and fill out a couple simple forms (only takes a minute) that record their workout routines, calorie consumption, and weight. The user can then browse to their profile to view detailed reports on their progress, including graphs. Also, If the user has motivators (up to four), each motivator will receive a email on a weekly basis filling them in with the users progress. Motivators can then optionally send a supportive message to the user if they have been doing well or send a negative message if they’ve been slacking.

To get started, register free with Traineo. The registration is a three step process asking you for basic user information, your weight and height, and the goal you would like to achieve. Once complete, you will receive your own Traineo address (username.traineo.com) and will be directed to the main page of Traineo where you will go to fill out your daily progress.

Traineo has a very rich interface with all the Web 2.0 design elements and uses Ajax all throughout the site making filling out forms and performing actions as quick as possible. Every page your browse to gives a quick look at your progress, telling you the amount of time you have been a member and how many pounds you have to go until reaching your goal. Each page also provides you with a list of each of your motivators, recent discussion from the Traineo community, and latest aggregated articles from Traineo experts giving various tips on weight loss and fitness.

You will see five pages to choose from on Traineo’s main page, three of which are forms that you are to fill out daily: My Workout, My Diet, My Stats, About Me, and Messages. The workout page is where you go to fill in up to three different activities that you have done during your day. Select an activity, specify the amount of time you spent doing the activity, and Traineo will automatically calculate the amount of calories you have burned that day. The diet page lets you rate your diet for the day and give the amount of calories you have consumed. Based on your input, Traineo will return your daily diet score (higher the number, the better). The next page is your stats page where you tell Traineo basic stats like todays weight, height, and BMI (Body mass index) and it will return a simple message saying how much weight you have lost so far and show a graph of your progress.

Traineo is also a community. You can browse to the members section and view how other members are progressing, participate in the forums, and catch up on articles written to help inform you of weight loss and fitness facts and tips. Browsing to the members section also allows you to search for motivators that may be willing to help you achieve your goal. Motivators are members with gold stars over their photos and if interested, you can send a message to them requesting they become your motivator. Searching around for a bit, I stumbled across Chris’s profile, one of the guys behind Traineo. Chris’s profile, seen in the screenshot above, is a good example of how your profile page (username.traineo.com) will look after using it for a couple days. You can see information including your start weight, how much you have lost, and how many pounds you have to go. You can also view line graphs that better illustrates your progress.

All in all, I think Traineo is an excellent service. Anyone can easily signup for free, track their progress as the days go by, and get friends and family involved as support. The site is very simple to use and the community is very informative and helpful. I’ve only known about the service for one day and I’ve already got a friend to start using it and I am going to be monitoring her progress as a motivator. Just seeing the service got her all excited and now she’s ready to get working. So, if your working on losing some weight, give Traineo a try. It may be just the thing you’ve been looking for.