inDECATUR, only a year old at the time, was selected to be one of the original sites monitored by Regator, a Decatur-based human-curated blog directory, and has used and promoted it ever since.
I check it every morning and evening, at a minimum.
Regator has provided 20 private beta invites to Regator 2.0 to the first 20 inDECATUR readers who scoff them up, so don't dally if you want one of them.
Go to http://preview.regator.com and enter indecatur as the invite code and your e-mail.
I have completely explored it yet, but what I've seen so far looks and works great, and it runs FAST!
"Taste of Decatur" is currently the top trending topic for Atlanta. (Get there by clicking on LOCAL in the topbar, then selecting the US and Atlanta.)
If you try it, please comment on what you think of it.
Update: Mashable likes it also, and has 200 invites to give away, but you're better off not linking through Mashable, as the link is reportedly very slow.
The full press release is in the continuation
Completely redesigned and rebuilt, the popular human-curated blog directory now features an intuitive new interface, improved search, trend graphing, Facebook Connect and Delicious integration, and more.
Atlanta, Ga. (April 29, 2010) – Regator—the blog directory and search engine that uses human editors to find the best blogs in more than 500 categories—has been redesigned and rebuilt in its entirety. During private beta, the new site is viewable by invitation only.
Improvements include:
- An intuitive new interface – Large tabs at the top of the page clearly show your options rather than hiding features behind a login screen.
- Grouped trends lists – Rather than simply presenting a list of the top twenty most-blogged-about stories, Regator’s new trends list groups terms related to the same story.
- Trend graphing – In the new Trends tab, you can view and compare graphs showing the blog coverage that any term has received. Stories that cause major spikes on the graph are also displayed.
- Improved search – Doing a search now shows which topics and blogs are covering your search term most and allows you to easily filter by date, topic, and blog.
- Facebook Connect – You can now use Facebook Connect to log in (note: this feature and Delicious integration are not available in the Regator Premium iPhone app until after the private beta period).
- Delicious integration – In addition to sharing posts via Twitter, Facebook, and email, you can now easily bookmark posts in Delicious.
- Setup Wizard – It’s called the Wizard because it’s pretty magical. Simply entering in four interests will generate a list of topics that you might be interested in adding to your favorites. From there, Regator recommends great blogs to follow as well as keywords to monitor.
- Blog Monitor – The Blog Monitor has always been an easy way to keep up with your specific interests (musicians, brands, authors, etc.). Now you can get RSS feeds for individual keywords to get posts about your favorite things delivered to your favorite feed reader.
- Improved Blog Profiles – Blog Profiles now feature a graph of recent posting activity (number of posts per day), related blogs, an easy-to-scan archive, and blogger achievement ribbons.
User behavior, feedback on both Regator.com and Regator’s iPhone apps, and lessons learned during the two years since designing the original Regator.com all helped steer the redesign’s direction. “Our primary goal,” says Regator cofounder Kimberly Turner, “was to make the site easier to use and more intuitive. Even tools we’ve always offered, like the Blog Monitor, are much more obvious now.”
CONTACT: Kimberly Turner (cofounder)
ABOUT REGATOR: Founded in November 2007 and launched publicly in August 2008, Regator is now home to the leading collection of high-quality, human-curated blog content, with an archive of more than five million posts from more than 500 topics. The self-funded Atlanta-based company includes Regator.com, Regator for iPhone, and Regator Premium for iPhone.
