'Microblogging' is still but a neologism and already it's evolving. Twitter, Jaiku, Pownce and now Vragr -
"Vragr is a group of users from around the world asking and answering questions, making statements, sending messages about anything they want. Users can reach other users (known or unknown) via Vragr. Newbees can ask for help and experts can expose their knowledge. Bloggers can use Vragr as a micro-blogging tool. Groups or individuals can make announcements."
"So what", you might say, "I'll stick with Twitter"..... but Vragr takes a unique approach to topic organization by threading channel discussions in outline format and outputting to OPML. Which means of course that they can be consumed in outline browsers like so -
Vragr comes from the stable of Zelders² founders of, among other things, the feed directory & search service Feeds4All.com, the feed codex FeedFiles.com and FeedZcolector. So, while it may yet lack the finesse of some other microblogging services it's definitely one to keep an eye on.
But what about that name? I asked Fred Zelders if it was a wise choice considering the close similarity to everybody's favourite spam message. But Fred explained the Dutch origin - "We wanted a special name. To Ask in Dutch is 'vragen'. And the Gmail spam filter didn't block your reply :-)"
James I am very honoured that you pay attention to our latest startup Vragr.
The success of services like this depends heavily on critical mass.
Any suggestions to create attention is much appreciated!
Lots of improvements and enhancements to develop of course. For instance the autodiscovery of OPML's and web feeds.
Also thinking about the content and structure of the vragr-OPML's.
Suggestions and requests can be addressed to us via the vragr-improvements channel url: http://www.vragr.com/channel.aspx?K=vragr-improvements
Any feed back is Very Much Appreciated!
Posted by: Fred Zelders | June 29, 2007 at 12:30 PM
I wonder if we could use a channel on vragr.com to construct the "Ultimate Irish Channel" and then populate it with bite-sized feeds that talk tech, entertainment, and announcements?
Posted by: Bernie Goldbach | June 30, 2007 at 06:48 AM