Last week we listed and categorized some of the leading topic-tracking tools on the Web. As usual we got a great response in the comments, with additional information about the apps listed and suggestions for other apps to add. So in this post we present an updated list of topic tracking tools for you to explore. Once again, we invite you to add more in the comments and/or comment on the existing ones.
We’ve also added links, to make it easier for you to check these services out.
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Feed and/or Email Services
These are services that output RSS and/or other formats, such as email notification. We think this type of topic feed tool is the most flexible, particularly when it outputs RSS. With RSS feed output, you can do further filtering or grouping of the feeds inside an RSS reader like Google Reader or Netvibes.
- GigaAlert (email only, no RSS; free only for trial period, then premium service)
- Google Alerts
- PubSub
- Regator
- Swamii (email only, no RSS)
- Topikality
- Trackle (email only, no RSS)
- Woofeed (email or mobile, no RSS; it also provides a publishing service for bloggers)
- Yahoo Pipes
- Yotify (email only)
Destination Services
These services don’t output RSS or emails for topic searches. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, it just means you have to visit the destination site to see results every day.
- Cascaad
- Collecta
- Ensembli (offers email digests)
- Guzzle.it
- LazyFeed
- My6Sense
- Technorati
- YourVersion
Social Filter
These services show what is popular or new amongst their respective communities. There are many other such services, so the following is just a sample:
- Delicious feeds
- Google Trends
- MashLogic
- Searchtastic ("smart Twitter search")
- Trendistic ("see trends in Twitter")
- Twazzup (Twitter search)
- Twitscoop (Twitter search)
- Twitter search (e.g. for hashtags)
Community Curated
Similar to social filter services, only these have a specific community driving the output of stories. Again, the below is a small sample:
People Curated
Topic-focused blogs (such as ReadWriteWeb!) are great for tracking topics on the Web. In recent times, light blogging services have offered an easy way for individuals or small groups of people to curate information on a given topic.
Update: also see this interesting post by Tony Karrer about "topic hubs" for bloggers.
- Favit (update: see this follow-up post on the Favit blog for details about their topic tracking features)
- NewsCred
- Posterous
- Tumblr
Aggregators / Portals
These services aggregate, or group, news and other stories around a specific topic.
- Alltop
- BuzzFeed
- Eqentia
- Google Fast-Flip feeds
- icurrent
- LinksAlpha
- NewsTwit
- PopURLS
- SNS Touch
- Topix
- TopSite
- Tweetmeme
- ViewsFlow
Market Intelligence
These are professional brand management services that you typically have to pay for. Many of them include topic tracking. Here’s a sample…
Please add your further suggestions to our categorized lists in the comments.
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