What the heck is a web aggregator anyway? Whether you know it or not, you’re probably already using one now. If you get your daily Internet news via an RSS reader, then you’re using an aggregator.
Essentially, a web aggregator is any application, widget, plug-in, etc., that allows you to gather information from several web features using that application, widget, etc. In the example above, an RSS reader allows you to set up several news sites that offer RSS feeds in the reader, and gather all of the latest news from those sites without actually visiting the sites individually. Pretty handy, eh? Here’s a video clip about how to set up Trillian, a popular Instant Messenger aggregator:
Wikipedia has some nice information as well.
There are many other types of aggregators already out there in the Web-o-sphere, with several more on the way. Over the next few weeks, we’ll be discussing some common types of aggregators that can make your Internet life much more convenient and less frustrating. We’ll focus primarily on social networking aggregators, but we’ll also take a closer look at things like RSS readers and plug-ins.
Feel free to chime in with a comment using the link below the title of this post, but be aware that we, the masters of this blog, will be watching (and approving) your posts, so be nice! Oh, and we don’t like Spam with our eggs, so don’t even bother.
