MeeHive Customizes News Cravings

There is an incredible amount of news and information that can be accessed from your iPhone. With RSS readers and mobile sites galore it can be a bit overwhelming at times. MeeHive seeks to be an app that sorts through the clutter to deliver the content you are most interested in. It is a product of Kosmix, which is getting a lot of buzz for its effort to give users more customized search results on the Internet.

The web version of MeeHive is a compelling beta offering because of the way it aggregates content to create an online newspaper that is tailored to your interests. MeeHive lacks some of the flexibility found on the desktop version. Nevertheless it is a good first effort at getting news and information content on the iPhone/iPod touch. The result is a mix of sites that you probably like and would have found anyway along with some newer content from lesser-known sources. Under the "My Interests" section you type in topics that you want to read about. MeeHive then pulls those stories for further reading. By registering for a MeeHive account, you can sync your interests between the iPhone app and the web version.

MeeHive works well at mixing up the content. But there are quite few hiccups. For example, in the "Hot Stories" tab the interface is a bit clunky and difficult to manage. A better section is "My News, which has a smaller list of stories tailored to your interests. There is nothing to indicate exactly what the difference is between "Hot Stories" and "My News." Are they more breaking? More read? It is hard to tell in MeeHive.

The "Offbeat" tab brings in random news and Twitter feeds on off-the-wall topics. There are 100 different stories of this type that load each time. MeeHive mixes things up a bit, but not something worth reading if it is news that you are after.

With a few improvements MeeHive could be a great tool for staying current with news topics that may be difficult to find elsewhere on the web. It could benefit from some upgrades and further syncing with the web component.