The Evolving Newsroom

I wrote yesterday about Alltop, a new site that makes it easy to read stories and blogs on a particular topic in one place without having to set up RSS feeds and a reader.

I hadn't had a good look around yet yesterday but had begun wondering what it was like as a news aggregator and how well it would work for journalism blogs.

As if by magic, I got an email overnight from Guy Kawasaki, one of Alltop's creators, telling me about the site and pointing me to a journalism page which collates journalism blog posts.

Can't fault the content. It's got most of the journalism blogs I read, a fair few I haven't and includes my own blog which is naturally rather pleasing. In all I counted 85 blogs on the journalism page, each with the five latest headlines listed.

Hover over any headline and you get a preview of the content along with a time and date stamp so you can decide whether it's worth your time to click through. Very nice.

I like looking at headlines on a page like this, too. It's a much easier way to scan multiple blogs for good stuff to read than scrolling vertically through a reader.

Verdict: works for me.

Perhaps we'll hear fears voiced that this 'best of' approach to filtering content limits the information people are exposed to and skews the news agenda.

But I see it like travel. This kind of aggregation is like a package tour - not to everyone's taste but great if you like a crowd, have limited time or aren't a particularly confident traveller. Doesn't mean you can't book the plane ticket yourself next time and meander along on your own.

http://journalism.alltop.com is a must-visit for anyone working in journalism.