Area grad's software streamlines Web access

In a digital world filled with social networks, blogs and news updates, a Jackson graduate has designed a program to streamline information.

Adam Hosp's program, Wallowr, allows users to access content from multiple Web sites through one "user-friendly" application. The program developed out of a contest sponsored by the Reynolds Journalism Institute and Adobe Systems, which Hosp and his three teammates won. The win garnered the team $11,000.

Despite virtually no advertising, the program has created a buzz in the online community, highlighting users' desire for ways to manage information.

"It's like a social news aggregator," said Hosp, a 2004 graduate of Jackson High School. The information technology major will graduate from the University of Missouri-Columbia in December.

In the past decade, a number of social networking sites have launched, creating a surplus of news. YouTube, for example, allows users to submit videos. Digg posts articles and blog entries from multiple sources, allowing users to vote on posts. The more "diggs" a story gets, the more prominently it is displayed. Twitter displays users' updates or mobile texts on a Web page and sends the message to the user's friends.

Wallowr was developed under the pretense that "you get content from a lot of sites. So do your friends. Why not get it all in one place?" The outcome is similar to the News Feed on the social network Facebook, which displays a list of the activities of the user's friends, such as the photos they posted, messages they sent, or whether they updated their profile. Wallowr uses the same idea but expands it to incorporate activity on multiple social network sites.

"It's a really easy way to follow your friends instead of going to all 12 sites to see OK, what's Lindy doing today? I could see what stories you dug, what videos you posted, if all five friends read the same blog," Hosp said.

The program uses Adobe AIR technology, which combines the features of a desktop application with online capabilities. When users are not connected to the Internet they will still be able to read stories or messages they have downloaded. The application also allows users to update their profiles from multiple sites through Wallowr.

Hosp and his teammates first heard of the Adobe/RJI contest in August. Eleven teams submitted ideas; Team Wallowr and two others advanced to the final round in September, receiving $5,000 for development. In February Wallowr was announced the winner, also winning the Viewer's Choice Award.

"The purpose of the competition was to see if students could come up with technology solutions to connect citizens and media in ways the media aren't already connecting," said Mike McKean, chair of convergence journalism at the University of Missouri-Columbia.

McKean said Wallowr makes it "dirt simple" for citizen-journalists to share information with newsrooms.

Hosp said about 1,000 people a day are using the site, although the team has yet to publicly release the Adobe AIR application. "We've finished all the bug fixes. We'd like to add support for Facebook. That's pretty much the big daddy social network right now. Without it, people will think of us as a complementary service," he said. An iPhone version is already developed, Hosp said.

He plans on increasing the application's visibility by encouraging a few well-known bloggers to review the product.

Hosp does not have definite post-graduation plans but is considering going into business with his teammates, MU students he either met at work or in class.

"They showcased how bringing journalists and computer guys together you can create striking solutions to problems in our business. It only took four months and little bit of money to do that," McKean said.

lbavolek@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 123

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