Regator, the popular blog directory and search engine we’ve covered before on The Next Web, has just put Version 2. 0 of its site into private beta and we have some invites just for you!
The site has been completely redesigned and rebuilt and now features an intuitive new interface, improved search, trend graphing, Facebook Connect and Delicious integration, and more.
All you need to do to check it the changes is head over to the Preview Page and enter the code “thenextweb” along with your email address.
Be quick though, there are only 200 invites and it’s on a first come first served basis.
I’ve had a play with the new site and I can tell you that the trending and monitoring tools are not only fun to play with but incredibly useful. Overall the feel of the site is cleaner and you get a sense that this really is a step forward for the Regator team.
The <3 of EU tech
The latest rumblings from the EU tech scene, a story from our wise ol' founder Boris, and some questionable AI art. It's free, every week, in your inbox. Sign up now!
According to co-founder Kimberly Turner, 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
She goes on to add:
“Our primary goal 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.”
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.
Get the TNW newsletter
Get the most important tech news in your inbox each week.