Startup Imooty brings the European Union to your browser

The fact that the United States is the world’s largest economy makes it possible for Americans to be regrettably insular. Americans can get away without understanding the language or political climate of our allies and trading partners. They must speak English and understand us — or at least our markets. But those lazy days will end. The U.S. trade imbalance, with imports exceeding exports for more than two decades, cannot endure forever. One tiny element in reviving the U.S. export economy will be a more nuanced understanding of our major trading partners. 

Toward that end a news aggregation service, Imooty.eu, can help.

According to an  interview in Online Journalism Review, Imooty “has about 400 newspapers and 600-700 blogs with more to come.” It struck me as a fledgling version of the U.S. based news aggregators, Topix and Outside.in (here are two of my prior mentions, an Topix reference older and a more recent commentary inspired by Outside.in)

Co-founder Kristoffer Lassen tells OJR that Imooty is trying to select and serve a representative sample of European news and has targeted journalists as power users (though I think currency traders be a better bet). Lassen says Imooty:

“assumes that certain users will look for an unfettered and clear overview of the entire European news landscape . . . . Readers now demand concise information that directly addresses their personal “need to know” requirements in an age when people are swamped by news sources – gathered for both work and private purposes . . . Imooty has already created a following among a number of well-known news and media bloggers and is featured by journalists’ news portals such as the European Journalism Centre and the Canadian Journalism Project.”