We finally go live today! Yippee!

This is our 4th release (or 24th depending on how you count), but the first one we are releasing to the public.

We have been working on this for sometime getting the technology right, improving the user experience, throwing away brilliant ideas that turned out to be really stupid - you know the drill.

So why are we doing this? Here is the “Why AllSides" story:

(Forgive me if this part comes off a bit high-minded, but hopefully you will grok what we are trying to do this way.)

The Internet is supposed to be empowering, not overwhelming.

But if you want to understand a controversial issue or what is going on in the news, hold on to your hat.

Lets say you search on Google. In the highest-ranking results, you'll get the most popular pages on an issue, but you won't see the many different sides or opinions around that issue.

Then you go to a news site. You'll see coverage of the latest events and opinions on the top issues of the day. But on other news sites you'll often find very different coverage, giving you completely different impressions of what happened and what is important. Often you will see stories that weren't even covered on other news sites.

So are we really informed, or are we just pawns of whatever information we happen to get?

How in our busy lives do we cut through the noise and bias to get to understanding and what is really happening?

(Here comes the shameless self-promotion!)

Our answer is to present the breadth of opinions and news in one place so you can quickly see the different perspectives.

Imagine some important questions. What food should I feed my child? Should I sell my stock or change IRAs? Will acupuncture and eastern medicine help me fight my cancer? Do I support pension reform? Education reform? Medicare reform? What is the best way to grow jobs in America? Who should I support for President?

With one look, AllSides will give you a broader understanding on topics like these so you are better informed and can decide for yourself.

With this first beta release, we show you political news coverage from all perspectives. We also show you how our AllSides Bias Rating system works and how you can get involved.

This is just our first step.

Let us know what you think, give us feedback (feedback@allsides.com), and join our cause to give you more control over your information - so all of us can make the best decisions for ourselves and our nation.

AllSides