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es "-""n.l' r%fl 18 * WATERLOO CHRONICLE + Wednesday, August 29, 2007 A Waterloo startup is offering a solution to information overload Too much information? new Waterlooâ€"based startâ€" A:Ip is receiving internationâ€" attention for its solution to Internet information overload. AideRSS allows its users to "read what matters" by sorting through the overwhelming numâ€" ber of posts and news stories generated every day. "We all want to read what matters, and yet people spend so much of their life trying to parse through mountains of drivel to find that nugget," said Kevin Thomason, the company‘s chief marketer. This business idea came to recent University of Waterloo computerâ€"science graduate Ilya Grigorik as he struggled to get through the many blogs and technology websites he reads each day. "At one point I would open my news reader and the technology section would have four digits of unread stories." "At one point I would open my news reader and the technolâ€" ogy section would have four digâ€" its of unread stories," he said. "And at that point ! just figured there was no way 1 could catch up on that." â€""It‘s like having 2 1/2 thouâ€" sand unread emails, it‘s just not a good day," Thomason joked. Grigorik met Thomason, whose background is in technolâ€" ogy and marketing, by chance at the gym, and they started talking about the student‘s Internet frusâ€" tration. And together, along with Franâ€" cis Lau, a recent UW computerâ€" science grad who works as an investment banker, they decided ation. choose from blogs and online "We go on the Internet and _ all day long. resources we need to do the And together, along with Franâ€" _ news sites. collect this data from a lot of difâ€" It could also be your grandâ€" _ crunching and all the analysis is Lau, a recent UW computerâ€" To determine which stories _ ferent websites and we aggregate _ mother‘s blog on her cat, Thomaâ€" _ that needs to take place on an cience grad who works as an _ will appeal to its 10,000 users, the _ it for every single story," Grigorik _ son said. "It might only be one a ivestment banker, they decided _ company looks at a number of _ said. month, versus CNN which is one Continued on page 20 ParRBNOFL | uew curmitunc uAEn-sslg AND ELECTRONICS SALE LABOUR DAY MONDAY SEPT 3 AT T1AM. A40AM PREVIEW. BINGEMANS. 426 BINGEMAN CENTER DR, KITCHENER. PMNT VISA, DEBIT, M/C, cASHâ€" 10% BUYERS PREMIUM. EVERYONE WELCOME! POR MORE INFORMATION CALL: 519â€"821â€"0331 EXT 6 OR VISIT WWW.UNCLEJOESAUCTIONS.CONM By Jennirer OrmstON % Chronicle Staff â€"Ilya Grigorik Startup coâ€"founder The coâ€"founders of AideRSS, from left, Kevin Thomason and llya Grigorik, are offering the public a solution to Internet information overload thanks to their new website. Simply put, the company works like a newspaper editor who picks out the best stories from newswires, except they choose from blogs and online news sites. to start AideRSS. "social engagement metrics," such as how many people left comments on the story, bookâ€" marked it or linked it to their own website. They work with RSS streams (really simple syndication}, which, for instance, you could get from CNN to have headline news delivered to your computer all day long. It could also be your grandâ€" mother‘s blog on her cat, Thomaâ€" son said. "It might only be one a month, versus CNN which is one JENNIFER ORMSTON PHOTO every four minutes, but that will go out via that RSS stream and then again we can tap into that, evaluate it, see if it‘s something you should pay attention to and then prioritize it with your other posts for the day." Users get to choose what they want to read on this free service, so you can filter in all your grandmother‘s cat stories, as well as all the good stories from the Waterloo newspapers and the best from CNN. "We let you choose that filterâ€" ing level based on what the source is," Thomason said. Filtering and ranking all the stories requires a huge amount of processing power, and AideRSS, whose employees wrote much of its technology, uses servers from Amazon, which sells off its surâ€" plus capacity. "So for folks like us, we‘re able to leverage a billionâ€"dollar infraâ€" structure," Thomason said. "We‘re able to team up with them and leverage their experience and data centres in Seattle and do some pretty neat things that for us would have been impossiâ€" ble a year ago because we would have had to build our own data centre, have our own network administration, and literally it would have taken millions of dolâ€" lars worth of machines, hardware and space. "And instead we can, in essence, rent that by the hour from Amazon and allow us the resources we need to do the crunching and all the analysis that needs to take place on an "So for folks like us, we‘re able to leverage a billionâ€"dollar infrastructure." â€"Kevin Thomason Startup coâ€"founder