Remember this post where I talked about doing market research? In it I explain how to use the internet to find out what your clients, competitors, or just your favourite people are doing online, for free.
At the end of the post I mention briefly that you can manage this information using alerts, or preferably RSS, but I don’t explain what RSS is.
RSS is a way to arrange for information you choose – news, blog posts, search results, to be sent to you when they are published, without you having to go and search for them all over the internet. Here is a fantastic video by Commoncraft about RSS and how it works.
RSS in plain English by CommonCraft
It is the first ever instructional video Commoncraft made, and is pretty impressive. While you’re on YouTube you might want to check out their other instructional videos or even subscribe to their YouTube channel!
Now you can set up all the searches you want – on twitter, on google, wherever you like, and pick up the RSS feeds and view them all in a reader. Every time your topics are mentioned online you’ll get a new entry. When you’ve signed up for a reader, why not subscribe to this blog? Just click the orange RSS button on the right.
Thanks Su, A great introduction. I personally favour google reader as its accessible from anywhere. I’m looking for a great iPhone app for that and wonder if anyone has a recommendation?
Hi Lincoln,
Following our twitter conversation I thought I’d record it here too for everyone who comes across this article.
I use Newsstand iphone app for RSS feed reading on my iphone, but when you asked about a good reader Pritesh Patel suggested mobileRSS and I’ve been trying this out.
I must say it is much better at handling my feeds than Newsstand is, so I’ll be switching to the pro version of mobileRSS.
Hope you like it too!
I love CommonCraft. What a great way to explain things that might seem complicated to the non techy people. I especially like his video on networking – http://ow.ly/2BBOD
That’s a great one Jason – The visualisation of your network also works well to explain how powerful Linkedin is.