I wrote Thottbot News to save time.  Every day I would read several messageboards and check several websites.  Often there were no interesting posts on the messageboards.  Often the websites weren't updated.  Of course, I had no way of knowing these things without visiting.

Now Thottbot does all this for me.  It finds posts I'm interested in, and knows which websites were updated.  Instead of checking two dozen sites each day, I check Thottbot.  From there, I go only to the places I know have something of interest.  In the end, I get more value out of my limited time, and check more sites than I ever could have manually.

Thottbot is completely configurable.  What I want to see likely isn't what you want to see.  For example, I may want to see all posts by WoW, Everquest and PlanetSide developers, any post with my name in it, and any post mentioning my guild, Afterlife.  Occasionally there are other search strings and games I'm interested in.  Thottbot shows me these things.

You may be interested in posts made by WoW developers and any posts made on DAoC messageboards that contain the name of the guild you play there.  Or perhaps you want to see Blizzard website updates and developer posts regarding M59.  Whatever things you want to see that Thottbot checks, that's what you can configure it to see.  It's very easy.

You will be able to input search strings of your own, and select entire categories to search within for that string.  You may not want this feature now, but sometime later, you might.  It's tremendously useful and and tremendously powerful.  I use it to maintain my guildleader omniscience reputation.  You can too!

Thottbot primarily deals with MMOG games, although other, non-gaming things are increasingly showing up.  Any messageboard or website can be monitored.  The ones offered right now are simply the ones I am most interested in, or those specifically requested by others.  Please, feel free to suggest other things for Thottbot to search.

Thottbot does require a login and password to use it, but this is only so you can keep your settings from machine to machine.  No personal information is required, not even an email address.  There is no form to fill out at all, in fact.  At the login screen, it will ask for your login and password.  Make something up and click the "Create New Account" button.  That's it.

Next step: Configure.

--Thott