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Tuesday, April 06, 2010

That's The Way Viigo

I first wrote about this back in July, last year.  I thought it was time to re-publish for those of you that haven't seen it.

Today, I'm going to talk about Viigo.
Viigo™ is revolutionizing the way people access information on their smartphones. Every day, Viigo addicts around the world rely on Viigo as their gateway to a vast array of useful, up-to-the-minute content and services, wherever they are and whenever they need it.
In one simple, fully customizable application, Viigo delivers news, weather, flight schedules and status, real-time sports scores, stock quotes and market data, entertainment, hotel and restaurant reviews, blogs, and much more.
Right - that's the sales bit over (it's a direct quote from the Viigo website).



This blog is about my views and reviews on what viigo has to offer.

Let me start by saying. this is a stunning application, which sits in the background (it's the one app I don't close) and periodically scans my pre-set filters for updates.

The content provided covers virtually everything, from sports to finance, and restaurants to cinema times. News, blogs, weather updates (one of my favourites, provided by AccuWeather) and social networks are all catered for. There are even podcasts available (though I've had difficulty getting to listen to them - must contact them about that!)
They are constantly adding new content providers, the latest being ExploreMusic.

If you use Google Reader, to pull together your favourite blogs, don't worry, you can have them all delivered into Viigo. If you make changes in Google, they are replicated automatically in Viigo (although that could take a couple of days - well, it did for me). Again, no criticism, just an observation. If you need the updates sooner, you can re-apply the channel.
You can even use their website to manage the feeds you have.
You can set how many updates you receive, as well as determine how often the updates take place. The more items you have, the more memory that will be eaten up, and this can impact on the performance; but only slightly.
Through playing around with the settings, you can work out what's right for you.

I mentioned above that the weather feed is one of my favourites, and this is where it comes into it's own. By setting towns / cities in the channel, you can view the current weather (and it's usually only a couple of hours out) as well as the forecast. You can then drill down to a full 15 day forecast.

If I had to gripe about something, it's the fact that this is very US centric. Some of the content is only for the US market, and it would be nice if there was more for the UK.
However, don't let that detract you.

There's plenty more it can do, including setting alerts on certain channels when they are updated. You can see when it was last updated - mine is set to 2-hour updates, but I can run it manually if I want to.
It's totally free, with small, unobtrusive, clickable adverts at the top of each screen. This is not a complaint. Today, we're all used to adverts being served to help keep the cost of content to the user at a minimum. Well, viigo is free, and that's in no small part due to the small ads.

For businesses, there is an enterprise version, which allows for the deployment of company info, events calendar, 'behind-the-firewall' content; you get the drift. I haven't looked at that, but from what I've seen as a personal user, it seems like an ideal way to keep the mobile workforce informed at all times.

My advice, if you have a BlackBerry, or other smartphone, get this application today. You won't regret it.

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