Digg + Techmeme/Blogrunner + Newsvine = Wikio

Grabbed lunch in a coffee shop so I could followup on some emails and surf Google Reader and leech off use their free wifi.  Like you probably do as well, I use tabs in Firefox to create “tabbed workspaces” that let me use different browser windows to load my oft-used sites so they’re at my fingertips just a tab-click away.

Four I check constantly are Google Reader (GR), Newsvine as well as the memetrackers (probably THE most powerful automated conversation tracking mechanism on the Web) TechMeme and Blogrunner. With the 1,000 or so articles popping up in GR that I skim/read each day — cross-referenced in the memetrackers so I make certain I’ve seen all the hot stuff of the day bloggers are “conversing” about by linking to one another — I really have a handle on what I need to stay appraised of daily.

While reading Mashable just now I came across this breaking news on the US launch of Wikio, an offering that I describe as sort of a Digg, Techmeme, Blogrunner and Newsvine combined. I dropped my sandwich as I realized that maybe, just maybe, I might be able to combine my use of these four sites within just this one!

As Mashable’s Adam Ostrow states in his opening, “Wikio, which already claims 5 million unique users in Europe, is officially launching their memetracker in the US today. “Memetracker” is probably too narrow a description for Wikio, as it attempts to be much more than services like TechMeme, BlogRunner, and the new Technorati.”

Wikio describes their site like this: Wikio is a personalised page of news, including a news search engine that searches media sites, blogs and member publications. Even without signing up or personalizing Wikio for myself and my own interests — which I just did — I can really see the potential here.

You can vote and promote articles you find interesting ala Digg. It acts as a memetracker, like TechMeme and Blogrunner (though I think that capability looks weak….but I haven’t yet formed an opinion). It allows submission like Digg does — and Newsvine before Digg appeared — but with a twist: since you can complete a profile like a social network, it allows someone who is willing to invest in article submission with the capability to build a reputation on the site which Newsvine pioneered with news gathering.

The bad news? I can’t export my OPML file from Google Reader (which I’ve painstakingly invested in categorizing over a couple of years) and then import it into Wikio. Maybe I’m missing something and I can do this, but if not it’s a deal-killer for me using Wikio as my primary hub.

The good news? I’ve broken into huge grins several times as I’ve bumped across articles and blog posts that I’ve *never* seen before. THAT sort of experience will be the acid-test for acceptance of this tool: if the value delivered by Wikio is higher than figuring out how to really use it effectively (which isn’t too tough) and if it provides more of us with the ability to consume and parse high volumes of information, than Wikio is a winner which it already looks to be.