Confessions of a Six Figure Professional Blogger

What’s So Great About Toluu?

May 27, 2008 | Blogging, Social Media

Warning: The following post will be seen as some as a party foul. :)

Sometimes I can’t help but wonder if geek bloggers just get excited about everything that comes down the pike or do they really look to see what the value is first. Case in point: Toluu.com.

Now let me be clear: I’m not going to come out and bash Toluu. All I’m saying is that I don’t really see what the excitement is about.

So, Toluu is basically an RSS feed storage site mixed with some social networking. You can upload your OPML file to Toluu and store all the RSS feeds you subscribe to. In my case, I exported everything from Google Reader and uploaded it to Toluu. Then the next facet is the social media portion of it. Toluu will match you up with other Toluu users based on the feeds they subscribe to. It is like a geek version of Eharmony.com, just using RSS feeds rather than a big questionaire to find your matches. So, I suppose the idea is that I can create new contacts and discover new RSS feeds.

But, I’m lost on one thing. Most bloggers are using FriendFeed. People are sharing links and sharing stories from their feed readers all the time at FriendFeed. AND you can comment on it (which you cannot currently do on Toluu). I find that FriendFeed is a much better option for discovering new sites and you have all the social proof you need to determine if it is good or not.

At this point, Toluu seems to me to be a stripped down version of FriendFeed mixed with a stripped down version of Google Reader.

So, my question, again, is: what’s so great about it?

I guess it adds a layer to Google Reader, allowing me to subscribe to a feed through Toluu and automatically into Reader. This will add a bit more social component to my act of subscribing to an RSS feed rather than just sharing the specific stories I like.

At the end of the day, Toluu seems like yet another social site to get some bloggers buzzing, but at the end of the day doesn’t really change the world. It is another tool in the belt of a person who is trying to lifestream every single move they ever make online.

If you use Toluu, what was your reason for signing up? For me, it was just to see what the excitement was about. I was underimpressed.

Perhaps that will change. All sites evolve and I expect Toluu will not be an exception.

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  • I have barely got my feed wet with Toluu but I can tell you why I'm excited about its possibilities.

    It is a very efficient way of finding blog recommendations from people with similar tastes. Friendfeed is fantastic but I might process a handful of blog/site recommendations where as in a matter of minutes I can discover 100's of feeds in an OPML sharing site.

    My further opinion http://tinyurl.com/6h9zf3

    Thanks, Tsudohnimh
  • I have to agree with you on your assessment as I wasn't overly impressed either and other than my initial run through haven't gone back.

    PErhaps like you say the site will evolve into something unique and useful as Caleb sure has put a lot of work into the project so for now I just take a wait and see position.
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