DISQUS

Thanks Louis... We'll check these out for Regator if they aren't already on.
Cheers!

We are no longer in private beta! The site is wide open for everyone to use.

I think that it is easier to start-up these days as initial costs can be kept fairly low through development. Where bootstrapping really kind of hits the wall is when you are looking to scale and market. For most smaller teams that are working on passion and hopefully a good idea, it is generally speaking unsustainable without additional funds to make it a real business and more than just another website. You get to a point where you need to give full time attention to the project to really make it go somewhere. For some this happens faster than others and depends on the founding team. Luckily I am not at that point right now, however I also see a light at the end of the tunnel - which definitely helps.

Thanks for the write up. We are really happy to have TechNation Australia on Regator.

Case in point:
http://datazilla.uni.cc/?p=223
vs.
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/mainstream...

Eerily similar, no? :)

It's completely theft, there's no two ways about it. As we have been launching our site, we have seen so many splogs or dodgy aggregators doing some *interesting* things with posts about us - it comes mostly from TC, Mashable and RWW, but predominantly TC. A bloggers product is their words and they should be compensated in some ways for them. For us, we give back in traffic and just a teaser, but I could see a time when there was an "APRA" equivalent for blog content syndication royalties. Espoecially as more traditional news organizations move online and will not take nicely to people wholesalely using their content with no tangible benefits ($ or clicks). Obviously no one wants to talk about this as it is very much anti the valley POV, but when it starts to get overrun by big media they will be wanting to monetize and will protect their investments and revenue stream like they are trying to do today.

Yeah, I downloaded that business plan from a site for $9.95 (and I got 300 of the best white papers ever written!), guaranteed winner!
fingers crossed... ;)
cheers mate

Rob - great post. Its really interesting when you look at samples like that. It's something that many early adopters don't get. Real people have a passing interest in geek-tech high notes like the iphone and things they actually might buy someone for christmas but there's more to their life. This is precisely why we are targeting our new site, regator, for "normal" mainstream folks. We now have over 400 channels that have quality blog content on all types of things from alpacas to cars to sports to crafts... and we also have a healthy dose of tech too (maybe a little weighted too much that way admittedly right now but we are working on creating a balanced range of content that anyone could find something interesting in). We know we may not be geek darlings, but we are looking to build a business and we after the millions of people who apparently give a crap about britney spears and wouldn't know a Techmeme if Gabe Rivera bit them.

We go live to the world next wednesday, if you want a sneak peek at what the hell I am talking about let me know. scott ~at~ regator.com cheers

Regator.com is another alternative although it is currently in private beta. Regator is a blog aggregator designed to make quality blog content accessible to the masses. The site can help you find some great music (and video) from the best blogs on the internet. There is a player within the site that allows you to search for individual keywords, browse categories, create playlists, preview tracks AND keep navigating the site without a pop-up window.
Full Disclosure: I am one of the co-founders.
Cheers!

Hi! This is Scott, one of the co-founders of Regator.com. It is true that you cannot import opml and we only have 3000 blogs *right now*. We are adding new blogs every day, 3000 is just our starting point. You have to start somewhere!
We are listening closely to the feedback we are getting so keep an eye out for some exciting new features coming very soon that should make Regator more of an option for you.

Hi Mario!
I am not sure if you are aware but Justin Hartman over at afrigator has retracted what he said earlier about regator doing anything close to copyright infringement as our site is anything but identical to theirs, even by coincidence once they actually saw the site. You can see his post here. They seem to be nice guys and this was just a misunderstanding that snowballed.
You can see his post here: http://justinhartman.com/2008/07/04/regatorcom-...
Cheers!

Thanks for the nice words.

We are really happy that other people are seeing Regator as unique and interesting as we do. That said, it's early days still and we are looking to add more functionality based on what we are hearing. The trick is trying to add the *right* stuff and keep it simple so the average non-tech geek user can still have fun on the site and keep it really fast.

It's funny you that you describe it as a directory of sorts, as the first idea for the site was a directory for real estate blogs for worthwhile blogs but the idea kind of grew somewhat...

btw, I am from Sydney. Chris and Kimberly are American. We are baking in Atlanta, Georgia right now. We hid the domain details because our office is our home and we didn't want that everywhere.

G'day Justin,

I am one of the co-founders of Regator.

We’re sorry you feel upset about this, but we had not even heard of afrigator until reading the comments everywhere. The reason we are called regator is because it a shortened form of agg-”regator” (that and the domain was available). It seemed to make sense. The alligator made an obvious mascot and they are green so we chose a palate to match.

I can honestly say that it is pure coincidence… and we are sorry if we have offended anyone, let alone you and the guys who are behind afrigator. It was not our intent.

p.s. as for the myspace page, it is real. Also, the domain is registered privately because we work at our home and we didn't want to have that everywhere. Nothing sinister, promise.