Yotify wants to let you subscribe to everything

If BranchNext, maker of Yotify, has its way, you will one day be able to get updates on everything that matters to you on the web. Do you like that shirt you saw on CafePress but don’t want to throw down all that cash? Yotify would love to tell you when it goes on sale. Looking for a two bedroom apartment in downtown Manhattan? Yotify wants to be there for you when one opens up.

For the tech savvy chunk of the population, the ability to subscribe to periodically updated info on the web is known as RSS, but the rest of the world isn’t necessarily familiar with the acronym. Yotify wants to be the tool that the latter come to rely on. The site offers a tidy interface for keeping track of things like apartment openings on Craigslist, updates from your favorite teams and leagues on ESPN.com or, for that matter, any blog. While Alerts.com and, to some degree, Google Alerts offer similar functions, Yotify has gone all Web 2.0 and made the process “social.”

If you can’t find what you’re looking for, Yotify lets you rope in your friends on Facebook or FriendFeed. Once you’ve signed up for notifications, you can add filters to separate out those you think are most important. And while it’s easy to go to the site to track your incoming alerts, Yotify will also send you an email digest. While you might think these digests would sink to the bottom of your inbox and get ignored, the company’s founder, Ron Bouganim, says they are opened with many orders of magnitude greater frequency than typical marketing messages.

The company is based in San Francisco and has raised an angel round from investors like Naval Ravikant of Hitforge, Auren Hoffman of Rapleaf and others. It is currently looking to raise its first institutional round.