BuzzLogic, which tracks discussion of clients' companies across blogs and social-media sites and then pinpoints the most influential commenters, has announced plans to acquire software start-up Activeweave for the technology behind a browser plug-in it developed.
That chunk of code is BlogRovr, which produces content from pre-selected "favorite blogs" as Web sites are displayed; if the user loads eBay, for example, a BlogRovr tray within the window might display what tech blogs have been writing about the auction giant recently.
Financial terms were not disclosed, but BuzzLogic's motives were: It wants to apply the BlogRovr technology, which currently monitors about 200,000 blogs, to the services it offers clients in its Conversational Targeting ad program. This BuzzLogic service identifies the most influential bloggers talking about a certain topic to help advertisers figure out where to put their name out. After the acquisition, Activeweave CEO Marc Meyer and Chief Technology Officer Jean Sini will stay on board.
"Activeweave lets (Web users) see the tracks of the people around them, and lets them knowingly lay tracks for others," tech veteran Esther Dyson, an Activeweave investor, explained in a statement from the two companies. "The online world around each user suddenly becomes more relevant and more personal. This acquisition helps BuzzLogic make this dimension available to advertisers."
I reviewed ActiveWeave's sticky-note service, called Stickis, in November. I liked the concept but said the site had "user interface features to work through," and that it could "stand to lose some of its advanced features." The team at ActiveWeave apparently got the message, since the company's new product, BlogRovr, is just as interesting as Stickis but also a lot simpler. And, therefore, more useful. (By the way, there's a quote from my Stickis review on the BlogRovr home page. Unsurprisingly, it's not one of the above.)
BlogRovr is tracking these sites for me.
(Credit: CNET Networks)Here's the BlogRovr concept: There are blogs and sites you like with authors you want to hear from. When surfing the Web, if you find a site or story that one of your favorite sites has written about, you might want to read its commentary on the new content you've encountered.
For this, BlogRovr will be your watchdog. And it's easy to set up: Go to BlogRovr.com and indicate the sites you want to track. Then, when you're reading content that has also been written about by one of your favorite writers, a small slide-out window points you to those write-ups. Or, install the BlogRovr add-on (only available on Firefox, so far) to get a new toolbar button that enables quick adding of blogs or sites to your BlogRovr watch list.
Any site that has an RSS feed will work as a source for BlogRovr. The company says it will eventually write some special code for major sites like Digg, so it can expose more than just text (for Digg: probably a chiclet with the number of Diggs the site has).
A BlogRovr slide-out (on the right). These blogs link to the target site--Buxfer, in this case.
(Credit: CNET Networks)The social networking and back-and-forth user comments from ActiveWeave's Stickis product isn't in BlogRover, and you won't miss it. This is a simple service that does a very nice job of keeping you plugged into your favorite bloggers.
I had a problem with the BlogRovr toolbar button not showing up on one of my tweaked-to-death PCs, but it works fine on another. Overall, the concept, utility, and usability of this new service is extremely good. I plan to start using it immediately.
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