New web search "NEWSLE" tracks news articles and information about anyone in several places such as: Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook.
Newsle scours the Internet for names and then uses complex algorithms to determine whether the person is the one you want to know about. In its first six weeks, the site has amassed more than 6,000 users tracking about 2 million people.
Right now, one of newsle’s cofounders, Jonah Varon, has a slightly higher “fame factor’’ than its other, Axel Hansen. The two, both 20 and computer science majors, joke that it only causes a bit of friction between them. (That’s mainly because Varon founded another Internet start-up a few years ago, FML, a network of sites at colleges that allowed users to vent about their lives.)
Eli Kozminsky, who just finished his freshman year at Harvard University and knows Varon casually, said he checks the site every day for updates about his friends, basketball star LeBron James, and some well-known academics.
“It’s like following a news feed with your friends in it,’’ said Kozminsky, of State College, Pa., who said he has found articles his friends have written and sports successes they were too modest to mention.
It’s basically like setting up a Google alert about each of your friends, Varon said, but rather than having to manually set up each one, you can let newsle track everyone on your list of contacts from Facebook or LinkedIn. And instead of filling your inbox as Google alerts for so many people would, newsle lets you check all of them in one place, as often — or as rarely — as you like.
“There’s definitely a bit of a stalker vibe to what we’re doing,’’ Varon, of San Francisco, said. But since all the information is public record already, all newsle is doing, he said, is making that search easier.
The people you follow don’t know you’re following them unless you tell them.
“One of the funnest things’’ about starting the site, Varon said, “has been to hear stories from people who have found crazy information about their friends. One user told us he got an article about his friend who had been arrested after biking around naked. And people have told us they found out about high school buddies who opened restaurants — all sorts of cool things.’’
“If someone were trying to truly ‘follow’ me online, they’d need to look in several places: Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, etc. Newsle could make that easier by having a single place to connect to news and updates about an individual,’’ he said.
Links:
http://www.newsle.com/
http://www.boston.com/business/technology/articles/2011/05/30/harvard_roommates_create_site_to_easily_follow_friends_and_the_famous_on_the_web/