Regator provides news aggregation for the more blog-minded

Catching up on the happenings around the blogosphere is a difficult task. Luckily, I happened to stumble upon John Burke's Download Squad piece on the release of Regator [iTunes link].

So, if you'd like to get caught up on the latest news, insights and commentary on Rod Blagojevich around the blogosphere (now that's a tongue twister), Regator could be of assistance.

Regator's user-interface is similar to USA Today's iPhone app [iTunes link]. A horizontal menu displays a number of categories -- such as sports, lifestyle, and entertainment -- that are touch-scrollable. Tapping on a category displays its subcategories. For instance, NBA news would fall under the basketball branch of the sports tree. While a breadcrumb trail displays your viewing hierarchy, the browsing menu disappears as you scroll down; this was my only annoyance with the app, although it's a relatively minor one.

Regator's stand-out feature is what it calls "trends." Like a tag cloud on a blog, in which bigger clouds are usually associated with more hot topics or issues, trends provides a listing of the latest hot topics around the blogosphere.

For instance, a look at sports trends shows Tiger Woods at the top of the list -- which is no surprise given Y.E. Yang's surprising victory over him this past weekend. And Brett Favre's retiring-unretiring-retiring-unretiring-retiring-unretiring puts him near the top of the trends list as well.

Regator is available as a free download at the iTunes app store. Domo arigato, Regator!