I built my first web app in 1996 (in ASP) and moved to San Francisco shortly after that.  This means that I got to see the dot com boom start and end.  If I had to pick one word from that era that drove me the most nuts, I would pick: “personalization”.  I have nothing against personalization per se, but the word was always something that product managers wanted, but didn’t know why or how it should work.

We want every user to feel like Vanno is their “personalized” guide to stories that impact company reputations. The old profile page was our first step at making this work, but with today’s new release we have stepped it up a notch.

Starting today, we have unified the concept of following companies and users.  This means that visiting your profile page gives you a stream of every comment and story submitted by any user you are following or that discusses a company you are following.  In addition, you can follow stories to see new comments on that story as they happen.

Taken all together, this means that you now have a “personalized dashboard” into what’s happening at Vanno that might interest you!

This new level of integration doesn’t just stop at the profile page.  You can get the same stream as an RSS feed or a daily “Activity I Am Following Email”.

Check out the new release and tell us what you think in comments.