The closure of Google Reader has put a spotlight on RSS and apps that people use to help make their way around the long tail of internet content. Lumi is tapping into a similar concept, but taking a very different approach.

RSS requires users to proactively select sites and information they wanted to track online — and some might argue that this proactive, sometimes technical element is what has prevented RSS readers from really going mainstream. Lumi, meanwhile, has been created with inactivity in mind. People can do nothing and still get relevant, current content delivered regardless, using algorithms that track where you travel online to provide links to what else you might like to see.

As long as you have downloaded the extension, which monitors whatever else do you on your computer, “you don’t have to do anything extra,” Stiksel told me in an interview. “You don’t click buttons or subscribe to new feeds. You can go away for two weeks and it’s even more fresh when you return. Because the system knows more about you.”

via Last.fm Founders Throw The Lights On Lumi, A Site That Uses Your Browsing History To Recommend New Content | TechCrunch.

This is what lumi looks like. The sidebar menu will disappear once you scroll off of it. Lumi reminds me of Stumble Upon, except at the content-specific level, rather than the website-specific level. Unfortunately, lumi is not recognizing my version of Safari at this time though it supposedly does recognize Chrome, Firefox and Safari, so the extension could not be installed. A cool and colourful new content discovery web service!