All posts tagged Taptu Stream Spotlight

Taptu Stream Spotlight: Chicago Trib; HBR; GQ; Financial Blogs; US Open; NCAA & More

Posted by on September 2, 2011

Taptu fans,

The StreamStore has been updated and we have a great mix of popular blogs and sites, as well as a few streams we’ve curated ourselves.

In our news category, we’re highlighting the Chicago Tribune. In the past, we’ve featured the New York Times, The Washington Post, and the LA Times to name a few. If you don’t live in any of these cities, you can always do a search for your local paper—we’ve added newspapers from around the country to the store. And, of course, you can simply add “News” to get a stream of news from a variety of different sources.

Given the continued focus on the economy, we’ve mixed up a stream of some the best and most popular financial blogs. The list includes Freakonomics, the New York Times’ Economix, Paul Krugman’s column, Zero Hedge, Business Insider, DealBreaker, Ezra Klein, Felix Salmon and more. Remember, if you don’t want all of the blogs, or you want to add more to the category, you can always add or remove any site or blog by editing the stream in the StreamStudio. Separately, we’re highlighting Harvard Business Review.

In sports we’ve got a US Open stream—dedicated to all the news from Flushing Meadows. And, as college football kicks off, we’ve added our mixed NCAA stream. Of course, you can still follow the NFL and all Fantasy Football news, with those respective streams. For our UK users, we’re highlighting football blog the Offside, as footy season (soccer to our American readers) gears up.

For fun stuff, we’ve got VideoGum, a blog devoted to “movies, television, and trampoline accidents.” Funny, very funny. We’ve also added Styleite, a blog for the fashion industry, or for those who just find it fascinating, and following our fashion theme, men’s magazine GQ.

For our UK users, we’ve also added Brand Republic, the site dedicated to advertising, media, marketing and PR, and Digital Spy, the entertainment and showbiz site.

Have you got a site you think we should highlight or have you mixed up a stream you’d like to share with the Taptu community? Let us know! You can reach us on @taptu on Twitter, our Facebook page, or on our community support pages. Thanks!

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Taptu Stream Spotlight: Fantasy Football, ZeroHedge, Street Style, The Atlantic, Mogulite & More

Posted by on August 5, 2011

We’ve got a new line-up this week, with some of the streams reflecting two of the big stories going on in the news: the state of the financial markets following the debt ceiling bill and football, football, football.

For those of you who follow the financial markets, we’ve got a whole host of financial streams, including Felix Salmon’s “A slice of lime in the soda,” Seeking Alpha, The FT’s Alphaville, Freakonomics, and Economix all of which we have featured in the past (please search for them in the search box if you’d like to add them). This week we’re adding Zero Hedge, the no-frills, controversial blog that people either love or hate, and that Time Magazine named one of its top 25 financial blogs. It also called Zero Hedge, “a morning zoo of pessimistic financial blogging…[that] has found an entertaining niche at the intersection of The X-Files, finance and tireless anti–Goldman Sachs–ishness.” With an endorsement like that how can you not at least check it out?

For football fans, and I mean American football fans (before our British readers write in to set me straight), we’re featuring two streams. In our Fantasy Football stream, we’ve curated some of the top blogs and sites giving the best advice on your Fantasy Football picks—including Yahoo’s Roto Arcade, ESPN’s Fantasy Football blog, FantasyOMatic, CBSSports.com, Fantasy Sharks and more. We’re also highlighting our NFL stream, with all the top news in one place.

What else have we got?

Street Style: If you’re a fan of street fashion, you probably do your fair share of hopping from blog to blog. We’ve mixed some of the best street fashion sites into one stream—and does it look gorgeous on the iPad/ tablet or what? We’ve included the favorites like the Sartorialist, Jak & Jil, Altamira and Garance Dore. But to give the stream some international flair, we’ve also included street style blogs Stylites, all the way from Beijing, China, and Wear About, from a documentary photographer based in Bombay/Mumbai India, Japanese Streets from Tokyo and StyleScout from London, UK.

The Atlantic: The literary and cultural magazine has been going strong since 1857. An eclectic mix of articles from the debt ceiling debate to my personal favorite, “Will The Smurfs Movie Hurt Neil Patrick Harris’s Career?”

Mogulite: This stream from the same publishers of Mediaite and Stylite is a bit like TMZ for business titans. Funny. Very funny.

Stereogum: Focused on independent and alternative music news, a great place to discover new music.

Have you got a site you think we should highlight or have you mixed up a stream you’d like to share with the Taptu community? Let us know! You can reach us on @taptu on Twitter, our Facebook page, or on our community support pages. Thanks!

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Taptu Stream Spotlight: Economix; Smithsonian; Dinosaurs, Cricket & Street Art

Posted by on August 1, 2011

Taptu fans:

We’re featuring an assorted–one might even say random–mix of streams for you this week: from streams that will help you understand daily economics and the financial markets better, to one from the Smithsonian Magazine, to one that follows the world of street art, and another that will teach you the latest tricks of digital photography. Finally, we’ve curated a stream on the latest dinosaur news, as a request from a very young Taptu fan.

So let’s get started with this week’s picks:

NYT’s Economix Blog: It may not be the prettiest stream (hardly any photos here!), but the New York Times’s Economix blog is an excellent source for understanding the decisions of everyday life through an economics lens. As the Economix writers say, “Economics doesn’t have to be complicated. It is the study of our lives — our jobs, our homes, our families and the little decisions we face every day.”

FT Alphaville: For you hardcore financial professionals that follow the markets, we’ve added the FT’s award-winning Alphaville blog.

Smithsonian Magazine: The magazine from the US’s largest museum and research center, the Smithsoninan Institute, started in 1970 with the mission to be “about things in which the Smithsonian [Institution] is interested, might be interested or ought to be interested.” Turns out these interests are very wide and very eclectic and make for great reading on the iPad or tablets. Recent stories have included the favorite and last meals of presidents (no, not humble pie for Richard Nixon as the article joked, but slices of pineapple arranged around a “plop of cottage cheese.” Appetizing!). There’s also a great article on the mystery of Murray Hall, a member of the corrupt 19th century circle of New York politicians known as Tammany Hall (as depicted in Martin Scorsese’s film Gangs of New York). Hall, it was discovered, was actually a woman, and had fooled people her entire life as a notorious, hard-drinking member of Tammany Hall–even managing to marry and produce a daughter. Her secret was found out only at the time of her death of breast cancer.

Dinosaurs: This is a request from a young Taptu fan (full disclosure: my 7 year old) who currently is crazy about dinosaurs. The articles come from a great mix of sources: Discovery, Scientific American, Smithsonian’s Dinosaur Tracking blog, and a blog from a “real-life” dinosaur hunter in Beijing, China.

Nature: Discover news and features on all things related to nature.

Street Art: If you love Banksy, and all things street art, you’ll love this stream. We’ve curated some of the top street art blogs from around the web and put them all in one place.

Just for our British fans:

Cricket: Calling all UK cricket fans! England won the last test match, but can the team become the world’s leading Test nation? Follow all the news in this convenient stream.

Spectator’s Coffee House blog: One of the UK’s most popular political blogs. Follow every post that’s added.

Remember, we’ve also added Nature and Dinosaurs to our UK StreamStore as well. That means that content will be localized (or localised, for our British readers) pulling up stories from British sources. Some sources have been posted to both the UK and US StreamStores as we believe both Americans and Brits will enjoy the articles.

Have you got a site you think we should highlight or have you mixed up a stream you’d like to share with the Taptu community? Let us know! You can reach us on @taptu on Twitter, our Facebook page, or on our community support pages. Thanks!

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Taptu Stream Spotlight: Jalopnik, Smitten Kitchen, Flavorwire, Popular Science & the Environment

Posted by on July 21, 2011

With the debt crisis and the News of the World phone hacking scandal continuing to dominate the news, we continue to feature our two search streams: “Phone Hacking Scandal,” and “Debt Crisis.” Both of these streams pull in the top breaking news in their respective topics to keep you fully informed.

Of course, we all need a little relief from these two very serious topics, so we’ve picked out a handful of some fun streams.

For all you car enthusiasts out there, we’ve picked out Jalopnik, whose tagline says it all: “Daily automobile news and gossip for those obsessed with the cult of cars.”

For culture vultures, we’ve got Flavorwire.com, with some of the best cultural news and critiques. Don’t miss their post on the “fake” Apple store in Kunming, China—this is no shoddy knock-off either. From the minimal, blond wood interior, winding steel staircase, and uniformed clerks, a lot of effort has obviously gone into it.

For those of you wanting to stay informed of the latest news, we’re featuring Popular Science, the magazine that has been a leading source of science and technology news since it was first published way back in 1872!!

For home & design enthusiasts, there’s Freshome, with some gorgeous photos of contemporary homes and modern furniture.

For foodies, we’re highlighting Smitten Kitchen, a favorite food blog of ours. Having tried several recipes from it—including the best chocolate birthday cake bar none—we can’t recommend it enough. Not to mention, the blog with its beautiful photos looks great on iPads and tablets. (And if you’re looking for a recipe for that classic vanilla layer cake and chocolate frosting, this is the recipe to use.)

For our specially curated stream, we’ve mixed one up for all of you into the Environment. Add this stream and you will get all the latest news from some of the best sources writing on the environment today, including Dot Earth, Sierra Daily (from the Sierra Club’s Sierra Magazine) and the Environmental News Network.

For our UK fans, we’ve added Jalopnik to the UK StreamStore as well, as car enthusiasm knows no borders. We’ve also included Smitten Kitchen, since this American food blog converts all of its ingredient measures into metric. Nice one! Plus if you add the Environment stream, you’ll get stories on the environment from British, rather than American sources, such as the Guardian’s excellent Environment blog. We’ve also featured Eurogamer, where you’ll find all you need to know about games.

Have you got a site you think we should highlight or have you mixed up a stream you’d like to share with the Taptu community? Let us know! You can reach us on @taptu on Twitter, our Facebook page, or on our community support pages. Thanks!

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Taptu Stream Spotlight: Debt Crisis, Phone Hacking, Freakonomics, Inhabitat & More

Posted by on July 14, 2011

With all the news consumed by two topics, the debt ceiling debate in the US and the ongoing saga of the News of the World phone hacking scandal we’re highlighting two search streams we’ve mixed specially to follow these two very important topics: our Phone Hacking Scandal stream and our Debt Crisis stream. Both will keep you informed of the latest headlines and analysis on these two subjects.

And, as the British Open gets underway, and the Tour de France finishes up its second week, we’re continuing to feature these two classic summer sporting events.

We’re also picked out a few other sites:

Freakonomics: The blog from economist Steven D. Levitt and writer Stephen J. Dubner. The two co-wrote the best-selling Freakonomics, which they describe as “a book about cheating teachers, bizarre baby names, self-dealing realtors, and a crack-selling mama’s boy.” Their blog continues to find the “hidden side of everything”.

Media News: As the name suggests, this stream follows all of the news regarding the media industry. Don’t worry, if you’re in the UK, the Media News stream will pick up UK-related stories.

Inhabitat: Now for some fun…This blog, set up by New York City designer and architecture graduate Jill Fehrenbacher is “devoted to the future of design, tracking the innovations in technology, practices and materials that are pushing architecture and home design towards a smarter and more sustainable future.” We just love it for the gorgeous photos.

Have you got a site you think we should highlight or have you mixed up a stream you’d like to share with the Taptu community? Let us know! You can reach us on @taptu on Twitter, our Facebook page, or on our community support pages. Thanks!

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Taptu Stream Spotlight: British Open, Phone Hacking Scandal, Mediaite, Anorak & More

Posted by on July 11, 2011

This week, we kick off the StreamStore with several curated feeds, starting with one of golf’s biggest events of the year, The British Open. By adding this stream, you can read up on all the latest news from the tournament. We’re also continuing to feature our Tour de France stream, since the cycling event will run until 24th of July.

For those of you in the UK, and even for those in the US that follow media or business news, we’ve curated a search stream on the News of the World phone hacking scandal. Will Rebekah Brooks go eventually? Will the scandal taint other NI properties? Will the police be held to account for the first investigation that failed to uncover or disclose the seriousness of the hacking? What are the ramifications for the BSKYB merger? You can read a constantly updated stream of stories with our “Phone Hacking Scandal” stream.

If you can’t get enough of media stories, we’ve got Mediaite for the US. This three-year old blog, started by ABC legal analyst Dan Abrams is the media insiders ultimate site—or as Abrams once described it, “for the media, about the media and part of the new media.” In the UK, we’re highlighting Anorak—tagline “keeping tabs on the tabloids” a sarcastic, sardonic take on the weird and wonderful news from the British tabloids.” In all seriousness, Anorak’s mission is to “raise awareness of bigotry, bias, spin and prejudice. With added sensation and satire.”

We’ve also selected a few others, NPR, especially great for some of their longer features stories, Dwell Magazine, that bastion of modern home design and gorgeous photos and The Hairpin, the women’s magazine from the publishers behind The Awl. In the UK, we’ve highlighted The Huffington Post UK in its inaugural week in Britain, and the tech and gadget site Electric Pig.

Have you got a site you think we should hightlight or have you mixed up a stream you’d like to share with the Taptu community? Let us know! You can reach us on @taptu on Twitter, our Facebook page, or on our community support pages. Thanks!

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Taptu Stream Spotlight: Tour de France; The Awl; Daily Beast; National Geographic & Guest DJ Stream Global Foods

Posted by on July 1, 2011

This week, our line-up of featured streams from our StreamStore starts with our specially mixed Tour de France stream. By adding this stream you’ll be able to follow all of the ups and downs of this year’s tour, which runs from Saturday July 2nd to Sunday July 24th 2011.

We’ve also curated a search stream for you on the on-going Dominique Strauss-Kahn saga, the former IMF chief accused of attacking a hotel maid. The news broke earlier that the case was on the verge of collapse after US prosecutors found too many holes in the housekeeper’s story to them. Strauss-Kahn, once seen as a presidential hopeful in France, was forced to resign from his top post at the IMF following his subsequent arrest.

What else have we got? We’re highlighting The Awl, the current events and culture web site that the New York Times once described as “all over the road” but that’s meant in a good, eclectic way! We’ve also got The Daily Beast, who’s tagline is “a fresh take on the news from around the world with sharp opinion,” and that old stalwart National Geographic. It’s stunning photos look great on the iPad and tablet.

For our UK fans, we’ve chosen NME, the music magazine as well as two smaller blogs, The Style Scout, and Bitch Buzz. The Style Scout is a street style fashion blog highlighting the quirky, stylish and cool in London, while Bitch Buzz is not your ordinary women’s magazine. It calls itself the “Honest Women’s Magazine” and you will certainly not be reading about how to shed those 10 last stubborn pounds or how to get your mascara not to run. But you probably knew that from its name.

Finally, we come to our Guest DJ of the Week, Jimmy Ebersole. Jimmy is an event planner, fundraiser, student, community-relations specialist and major foodie from Atlanta, Georgia. In his spare time, Jimmy curates the best food news and recipes from Taptu and shares them to his Twitter followers @Global_Food.

He’s kindly agreed to mix up a stream of his favorite global food sites, which include eclectic picks such as the cheese magazine, Culture, New Asian Cuisine, a must for anyone who loves Asian food, and Souvlaki for the Soul, “a Sydney food blog featuring Greek and Mediterranean recipes, travel stories, beautiful food photography and food styling.” Jimmy’s Global Foods stream is a great one if you’d like to explore cooking from across the world and need fresh ideas on what to cook. I was thinking of making a summer pudding from a recipe I found in Jimmy’s stream, but I’m now leaning toward the Matcha Mochi Cake (Green Tea Mochi Cake). Thanks Jimmy!

If you think you’ve got a great mix on your hands, why not share it with the Taptu community? You can reach us at @taptu on Twitter, our Facebook page, or on our community support pages. Thanks again for using Taptu.

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