Rootly Review

Editor's Note: Rootly is a current sponsor of CenterNetworks.

Rootly is a news aggregator at its most basic definition. It brings together news from around the web in about 100 categories and includes a search to make finding the news you are looking for easy. Blogs do appear in the results which continues my belief that the quickest news reporters are blogs today.

The technology is pretty well put together, the menus fly open and closed which is nicer than having to refresh the page each time. There is a menu on the right which rotates the newest headlines so you don't miss anything.

I think the best part about Rootly is being able to grab a feed for the categories you are interested in. Say you want news in the Web 2.0 space, there are probably several hundred potential sources (including CenterNetworks), by using the Rootly feed for the Web 2.0 category, you will always stay on top of the latest happenings.

Rootly also has social networking options for users to be able to monitor other users activities, such as seeing what stories they were interested in, and, Rootly allows you to mark certain news items as "favorites" and share them with your friends. This is similar to the trusting of reviews we have discussed in the past with sites like Reevoo and Soapadoo. Here, news that your friends have visited or thought was important, immediately becomes more important to you (at least initially.)

My main suggestion for Rootly is to improve the look and the usability. Right now the site feels a bit "loose." If the design could match the quality of the content and the technology, it would be an even stronger player in the news aggregator market. The other suggestion I have is a way to move back in the list of "More News" on the right - if you miss clicking on an item, where does it go?