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We know that journalists and bloggers would rather spend their time researching, reporting, and writing than sifting through mountains of information. That’s why we created Regator Breaking News (http://regatorbreakingnews.com), a service launching today that delivers custom up-to-the-minute news alerts directly to writers via desktop app, email, or web—often well before traditional news sites, Twitter trends, and other sources.*
Regator, launched in 2008, is best known as the home of the web’s leading collection of high-quality, human-curated blog content. The company’s Breaking News service uses proprietary semantic algorithms to analyze that carefully curated information, determining the importance of stories as they happen. This curated dataset ensures that the alerts that Regator Breaking News members receive come from trusted sources.
Journalists and bloggers can customize their notifications by choosing from more than 30 topics such as entertainment, politics, sports, business, and technology. Once an alert is issued, Regator Breaking News members have access to tools designed to help today’s busy writers get a story out quickly: graphs of historical coverage, social media monitoring, resources for sourcing photos, additional context, and more.
Kimberly Turner, cofounder of Regator and journalist, explains: “The goal of Regator Breaking News is simple: to help writers spend more time reporting and writing, and less time searching for the right stories to cover. Knowing that we’re bringing the news to them as it breaks, RBN members can focus on creating content rather than digging through RSS feeds, newswires, and social media.”
The Regator Breaking News desktop app (an Adobe Air app for PC, Mac, or Linux) also features the web’s most timely accurate trends for dozens of niches and, for those on an editorial team, a communication tool that allows members to comment on alerts, assign stories, and communicate with their team.
Regator Breaking News members always receive a 14-day free trial and can cancel any time. During the special Launch Sale, every member who signs up before June 14 will receive 50% off their first three months.
*Recent time trials on major breaking news stories found Regator Breaking News alerts arrived an average of 101.7 minutes before coverage of the same stories on CNN.com. Specific stories used are available upon request. The RBN alert for the release of Obama’s birth certificate on 4/27, for example, arrived 8 minutes before FoxNews.com coverage, 29 minutes before CNN.com coverage, 57 minutes before the Huffington Post email alert, and 11 minutes before it was trending on Twitter.
After our first LessConf experience last year, we wrote "29 Reasons Regator Loves LessConf." And to tell the truth, I wondered whether Steven Bristol and Allan Branch could deliver something as useful, inspiring and downright awesome as the first Atlanta-based conference (it was held in Jacksonville before last year). I never expected that they'd blow last year's event out of the water…but they did. Here are 13 *more* reasons why we think this is (bold statement alert) the most inspiring, useful tech conference of the year:
It is chock full of people who do stuff. Do-ers, as one speaker put it. Nobody you talk to there is "thinking about starting something" or trying to get money so that they can start something. These people are the real deal–web entrepreneurs who have real products and hard-earned wisdom. Which is why…I've made more actual friends at LessConf than any other tech conference. One of the first things we were told was "If you don't meet great people at LessConf, it's your fault." And that's the truth. DaveLinabury.com quotes LessConf organizer Allan Branch, who says it best: “We wanted to make the conference we’d want to attend. It’s more like a party than a conference in some ways. If you take away two or three things from the speakers, that’s great. But if you leave with 30 new friends, that’s what it’s all about.”
Allan and Steve set the tone from the moment it starts: no pretention, no bullshit, no buzzwords. It's a conference with a sense of humor…Which is not to say it's not serious about providing inspiration and useful content. This year's speakers gave straightforward tips, information, and inspiration on everything from customer support, user experience, and design to pricing and, um, strip clubs. Grailbox has a fantastic summary of the panels.The venue had comfy chairs, ample power points, free parking, and solid wi-fi.Free neck and head massages again from Alicia Durrence and her magic hands were harder to get to this year because the sessions were so interesting and in between them…There were musical interludes by the talented and charming Allison Weiss and Julia Nunes, who also played one of the afterparties.Sweet, free LessConf shirts for all, plus an awesome swag bag with stickers, PopRocks, animal crackers, and other fun stuffWedgies. On stage. For prizes.
Fantastic after-parties at The Loft (thanks, MailChimp) and the Artmore (thanks, We Are Titans) where we had plenty of time to meet each other, have some drinks, and listen to some great music.Free usability testing from usertesting.comIncredible moments: listening to an attendee start the conference with the customary whale joke, standing in the sun eating ice cream while the ice cream truck's music wafted over us, watching Steve try to sit on stage in his kilt, cracking open a fortune cookie to find custom LessConf messages.