What is Buzzoggi?

Buzzoggi -- "Buzz" + "oggi" ('today' in Italian) -- is an internet mashup that processes over 30 different RSS feeds from various sources to find out what is 'hot' on the web and in the world.

Buzzoggi combines content from different types of sites -- news aggregators, like Google and Yahoo, blog monitors like Technorati, and 'wisdom of the crowd' sources like Del.icio.us, Digg and popular search terms on search engines -- finds the most popular words, names and phrases, and scores them to identify the hottest items.  It is easy to explore these hot concepts by clicking on links to the original sources or by generating related search terms and sending them automatically to a number of popular websites:  search engines, Wikipedia, Amazon, photo and video websites, and Google Maps.  You can go from unaware to well informed in minutes, simply by exploring the Buzzoggi concept clouds.

Buzzoggi can also monitor concepts that are important to you, whether or not the emerge as hot web items.  First of all, you can select the Buzzoggi concept you want to explore: general news, health, entertainment, sports, technology or politics.  Then, for each topic, you can define an unlimited number of words, names or phrases you want to monitor by typing them into the 'Favorites' list.  Items on this list will show up on the favorites screen if they appear in any of the feeds analyzed for that topic.  Your favorites list, like other settings you make in Buzzoggi, will be stored when you leave the site and active when you return to Buzzoggi.

There are other ways for you to customize your Buzzoggi:  pick your favorite image and background color, and set the timing you prefer for refreshes.  These settings will be saved until you change them.

The benefits of Buzzoggi are simple:

• Fast, easy monitoring of many sources of information
• Diverse information from both traditional and nontraditional media
• Quick aggregation and analysis to find the hottest concepts being talked about on the web
• Quick access to the original source materials
• Ability to quickly explore further by pulling up related materials: books, photos, videos, maps, reference materials, websites
• Easy customization that focuses Buzzoggi on what matters most to you

Buzzoggi is built using Microsoft Silverlight, a browser plug-in that allows Rich Internet Applications (RIAs) like Buzzoggi to run on your computer without the purchase and installation of additional software, and Buzzoggi gets its feeds through Yahoo PIPES, a free service provided by Yahoo that makes accessing content from the Web quick and easy.  Both of these products are still in the beta stage of development, but Microsoft and Yahoo are making great strides towards making the promise of Web 2.0 a reality!

A Quick Buzzoggi Overview

Buzzoggi is an RSS feed mashup that joins feeds from various categories (e.g. sports, entertainment, and health), analyzes and organizes them into the most newsworthy concepts.  It starts by pulling 30+ feeds from Yahoo Pipes.

Figure 1:  Buzzoggi Pulling Feeds

The lead stories from the feeds making up the current category (in this case “General News”) are scrolled in marquees to inform the user while Buzzoggi “counts” the frequency of words used in each story.

Figure 2:  Buzzoggi Showing the Top Words

The most important words are released into clouds or “thought bubbles” that surround the central image.  This is an intermediate step and Buzzoggi continues processing to merge concepts and important names in the news.  For example, Buzzoggi understands that Sarah Palin and John McCain are names of people, and should be merged with other stories involving Palin and McCain. 

A new set of concept clouds are released and now hundreds of news items have been aggregated into the top 20 concepts of the moment, based on a scoring algorithm. Buzzoggi automatically refreshes itself in 5 minutes or you can specify your own refresh frequency.  You can also specify their own favorite search terms for monitoring and display, regardless of their score.

Figure 3:  Buzzoggi Showing the Top Concepts

The current details of a given concept are available by clicking on a cloud.  The top section of the detail pane shows all the related stories, while the bottom section allows you to quickly create a search term by using the key concept and related words.   The action buttons to the right lets you send the search term to other popular websites, for further investigation.

Figure 4:  Buzzoggi Detail Pane

Below is an example of jumping to one of the source stories.  It is opened up in a separate browser so the user can explore multiple sources.

Figure 5:  Buzzoggi Showing an Original Source

The menu at the bottom lets you learn more about Buzzoggi as well as set your own default settings, including favorites, topic, which marquees are displayed, background color and image.  Settings will be remembered between sessions.

Figure 6:  Buzzoggi “About” Screen

Take the time to customize the look and feel of your Buzzoggi!  While one of the goals of the site is to keep you informed, another important goal is to make being informed easy and painless.  Make your Buzzoggi something you enjoy seeing...  Have an idea for an image you'd like to see?  Send us a suggestion!

Figure 7:  Buzzoggi with Different Image and Background Selected

Contact Us

A custom Buzzoggi can be created for you or your organization.  We can completely customize the look, select unique feeds that will generate the content you want to monitor, customize the analysis and scoring - go far beyond what can be done with the 'favorites' capability provided in the public Buzzoggi.  Just give us a call - we can have your custom version up and running in a week, either on your server or securely hosted on ours.

We also have extensive MS Silverlight and programming skills that we can use to create a completely custom site for you - but of course, that will take a little longer!  Give us a call and we can estimate the amount of effort required to make your dream site come to life.