Immersing yourself into the blogosphere and social networks keeps your finger on the pulse and helps you connect with others. A feedreader helps you quickly scan articles, blog entries, and site to keep you updated. However, they can be a time killer and easily overwhelm a person.

My feedreader has over 400 feeds. It wouldn’t sound so bad if each feed contains four to five new entries per week, but some sites post over five entries per day. When feeds feed on your time, how valuable is it?

With numerous high quality sites out there, it’s easy to add feeds and find that your reader has way too many. You don’t want to forget about these sites, but you also know that it’s unrealistic to keep up.

Here are tips to help manage feeds without eating too much time of your day:

1. Have a goal in mind before using your feedreader. Are you looking for something to link to and write about in your blog? Do you need an article on a certain topic? When you meet that goal, close the feedreader.
2. Organize your feedreader by topic. If you write about geeky topics, it might help to break down topics by sub-topics such as hardware, software, programming, security, etc. Look at the kind of information you need and create categories for those needs so you search fewer feeds. When you need a laugh or a lift, you can refer to feeds categorized under Humor, Fun, or Entertainment.
3. Limit the blogs and sites you check regularly. It might help to create a separate folder for regular reads.
4. Use a feedreader with a search feature. You can’t have a category for everything, so search helps here.
5. Avoid using the feedreader to just surf (unless it’s a slow day and that’s what you want to do). This is a sure way to while away your time.
6. Delete useless feeds. If you discover a feed that hardly produces the content you need or want, delete the feed. You have plenty of other good ones.

For sites that provide e-mail updates, I subscribe because they come to me. I can easily delete the e-mail or scan it to see if I should check it out — I make the decision based on my current schedule and to do list for the day. Subscribing to their e-mail feeds reminds me to check the site when I can. Although, this tip might not work well for those who have inbox overwhelm.

meryl’s notes has two parts to it: The blog and articles (well, three, if you count the newsletter, but it doesn’t have a feed). The blog contains shorter postings while articles consists of longer posts that are good for a long time such as tips, reviews, and advice. If you subscribe to meryl’s notes blog feed, you won’t see what’s in the articles and vice versa.

Here are the feeds — thank you for subscribing! If there’s anything you want more of… please post a comment. The content should be valuable to you.

• All of meryl’s notes content
• meryl’s notes blog
• meryl’s notes articles
• meryl’s notes games

Businesses have been taking advantage of many online tools not originally created for business purposes such as blogs, feeds, wikis, forums and more. These help businesses create a community, build relationships and gain trust and credibility. Would you buy a book on this topic?

If so, what do you want from the book that you’re not getting from other books?

Here are some books that cover similar topics:

• Marketing to the Social Web: How Digital Customer Communities Build Your Business: Part I covers social networking landscape. Part II contains seven steps to building community. Part III discusses strategies by group (i.e. blog, e-community, social networks).
• The New Rules of Marketing and PR: How to Use News Releases, Blogs, Podcasting, Viral Marketing and Online Media to Reach Buyers Directly: Emphasis on marketing, part I of book covers theory, and discusses why old media doesn’t work anymore.
• Online Communities: Designing Usability and Supporting Sociability: Focuses on Web design and targets Web designers. May be too technical for the average businessperson. Has an academic and research focus.
• Secrets of Online Persuasion: Captivating the Hearts, Minds and Pocketbooks of Thousands Using Blogs, Podcasts and Other New Media Marketing Tools: New media focus and written with a promotional tone like content on sites with long copy with yellow highlights.

If not, are there any topics you’re interested in surrounding web, content, writing, and marketing — that no book addresses? I’d love to hear your comments and thoughts. Thanks for any input!

Derek Harding at ClickZ explores RSS, its good and bad points, and its impact on email marketing. Just like some people prefer to get pizza by delivery, by pick up, or by eating in the restaurant — RSS and email newsletters provide users with the choice of getting content delivered by email or by newsreader. Pizza delivery didn’t kill the pizza restaurant.

I remember when I first discovered feeds through Dave Winer’s Radio Userland. I was perplexed by the whole deal, but it was cool having content come to you. It’s much easier now as more sites have links to their feeds and we have a variety of choices in how we read the feeds.

I’ve used FeedDemon, Newsgator, Bloglines and tested out a few others. They’re great apps, but I use them occasionally. Yet, I almost always read the email newsletters that come to me. But when I’m searching for high quality articles for the newsletters I manage, I rely on a news reader more often as the list of newsletters grows.

Jason Dowdell of MarketingShift writes that RSS marketing is taking baby steps. He says one of the problem areas is registering feeds with sites, but we already have to register our web sites with search engines and directories. No different.

Sites also list a bunch of buttons linking to different feed readers including their own creations. It’s a shame to waste space in listing these buttons (see above image), but the art of feeding a basic link into a reader befuddles even the intermediate computer user and these buttons automatically load the feed into your reader of choice. At some point, readers and users will advance so that we can return to one button only links to add a new feed into a reader.

Hey, the fax still exists.

Feature on newsletters and RSS

Credit: Icon from bakkeldotcom

Stock investors always say, “Diversify!” Imagine if you had all of your stock in one company and it went bankrupt. This scenario is what happened after the dot com crash.

Putting all your eggs into one basket labeled “email newsletters” can also spell disaster. The eggs might meet the same fate as Humpty Dumpty. But if we split up the eggs into a few baskets and one falls, we still have two to fall back on. Other kinds of baskets such as your Web site, blog, snail mailings and feeds can support your newsletter and help you build better relationships with prospects and clients.

Other online tools

We have a diversity of options available for building relationships through Web sites beyond the static sites that rarely change or get updated. Not all businesses advertise or market on TV, radio, newspapers or billboards. Why not? Because those vehicles may not be the best way to reach their target market.

While we might think, “Online is online. Once you get there, you can do everything.” That’s true, but as with kinds of egg dishes, people have preferences, likes and dislikes. Here are the tools we can use to connect with prospects and clients:

* Blogs
* Feeds
* Bulletin boards/discussion forums
* Wikis

When companies use tools like these to interact with the community, it makes them more accessible, puts a face behind the company. These also help keep the site regularly updated with fresh content, which is always a good thing, especially with search engines.

Blogs invade businesses

Weblogs aren’t just for telling our sob or life stories anymore. Blogs, as Weblogs are better known, can be online articles, essays, entries, diaries and journals. A typical blog contains entries displayed in order from most recent entry on forward to older entries.

When a blogger posts an entry, users can read and comment on them when that feature is available. Most blogging applications come with comments, but the blogger might choose not to use them, monitor them or leave it open for anyone to comment. They can delete comments, especially when they’re offensive or comment spam — comments from spammers who post repeated comments with links to sites to increase their search engine results.

CEOs, CIOs, vice presidents and many others have joined the blogging revolution to give a voice to their companies. Topics range from commentary on the industry, insight into strategies and advice on general business practices, to name a few.

While the decision on whether or not to blog and who should blog for the company is an article of its own, here are the basic requirements to meet when blogging:

* Add a new entry at least three times a week.
* Discuss topics rather than just linking to others.
* Read other blogs.
* Provide valuable information to readers rather than just about your company.

While successful blogs have broken these rules, they’re not common. Whenever you release a new issue of your email newsletter, blog it. It’s an opportunity to reach an audience that might not otherwise find out about the newsletter. You can read more about business blogging in these books:

* Blogging for Business: Everything You Need to Know and Why You Should Care by Shel Holtz and Ted Demopoulos
* The Corporate Blogging Book: Absolutely Everything You Need to Know to Get It Right by Debbie Weil (coming soon)
* Naked Conversations: How Blogs Are Changing the Way Businesses Talk with Customers by Robert Scoble and Shel Israel
* Blog Marketing by Jeremy Wright

Feeding with feeds

Rather than coming to the Web site and reading a blog, some people read the blog through a news reader, feed reader or aggregator application. Such applications can be downloaded and used on your computer, like FeedDemon, or are Web-based, like Bloglines. News readers make it possible to read all of your favorite blogs and online content in one place.

While news feeds were originally associated with blog content, they can be available for any online content. You may have seen the RSS or XML icons, text along the lines of “Syndicate this site” or a button that says you can subscribe with a specific feed reader service or application like Bloglines, MSN Alerts, MyYahoo! and more.

(Note: If you’d like to know more about feeds, here’s an article on feeds.)

Next time you go to a Web site, look for the feed. Any page on a Web site can be a feed, but a feed isn’t appropriate for just any old content. The best kind of content for creating a feed is regularly updated, including newsletters, like this one that has an RSS icon in the upper right-hand corner.

Take advantage of feeds and reference other content. If you have a feed for your newsletter, in its contents, reference something new on the Web site or a new article you’ve written.

The trick to spreading your eggs out is to have all of your content point to each other, business cards included. Business cards can have URLs to the Web site, newsletter and anything else that’s appropriate and fits on the small card. A long URL won’t go over well. Instead, use a URL shortening service, as many don’t cost anything.

Opening the doors with forums

Forums — also known as bulletin boards, discussion boards, discussion groups and message boards — offer an online meeting place where users can discuss topics. They don’t have to be logged into these forums at the same time. Forums typically require registration to avoid abuse, but some let users post anonymously. To use a forum, all a user needs is usually a Web browser, a sign on ID and a password.

To keep things under control, forums might have moderators who have the ability to edit or delete messages and remove user access. Unlike a blog, a forum allows anyone to start a new discussion. Only the bloggers can start a new topic in blogs, but most blogs come with commenting features to involve the readers.

When an interesting discussion occurs on a forum, reference it from within a newsletter or a blog to get others involved. Many businesses use forums so users can help each other with product problems and questions. Experts might also be assigned to track the forums to help when no one else can.

Colleges and universities with online classes might use forums so professors and students can interact and discuss course-related materials and projects. Do a search for “forums” and see the diversity of topics covered including hobbies, business, careers, industries, games and more. Companies also use forums so teams can collaborate or build a community among employees whom might be near and far.

Wikis take collaboration a step further

Wikis, like forums, involve multiple users who can start a discussion or topic. But unlike forums, wikis allow users to edit other people’s content. A person could create a new page, and another person — who has more information — can add onto the original article and make changes.

While anyone having the ability to edit anything sounds like a recipe for disaster, it doesn’t happen often. Wikis can be protected with a password to prevent potential problems. Wikipedia is a giant wiki thanks to its 13,000+ contributors who manage over 1,800,000 articles in 100+ languages. Over 960,000 of those articles are in English.

Pages in a wiki connect to each other through links. Creating a link in a wiki depends on the software used. A link could be created with a simple [This is a link] (brackets around the item to be linked), *This is a link,* or some other way. Working with a wiki resembles using a word processor.

These, like forums, come in handy for team collaboration. A software development team could use a wiki to document features and show how to use them. A marketing team could track its projects and updates with a wiki. The options for collaborating with a wiki are many.

Deciding on which tools to use

Blogs, feeds, forums and wikis have many features that impact your decision on which to use. Also, organizations that develop forum, blog and wiki software list the application’s features on their Web sites. You can check them out to help figure out what you need.

Keep in mind that content management systems (CMS) and communications management systems come with these tools built in. Even if a CMS that best fits your needs doesn’t come with a tool you want, you can always add on with another product.

In any case, you might find one, two or none of these communications tools works for you. No matter which you chose, it’s about seamlessly putting your information into more than one basket and reaching as big an audience as possible.

And how they impact the newsletter biz

It’s been a long day at work and you’re in no mood to cook dinner or go out. Time to count on the reliable pizza delivery guy. The order is called in and he promptly arrives with smokin’ hot pizza within 30 minutes as promised. If it were only that easy with a picky family where no one can agree on the same restaurant for dinner. One wants Mexican, another wants Chinese, and another wants a burger and Mexican. Instead of running to three different places, you call a delivery service that goes to all of them and brings it to you. What could be easier in getting a meal without cooking it or fetching it?

RSS, XML, RDF, and Atom are the food delivery guy of the Internet. The content they deliver is mixed and cooked elsewhere on the Internet just like the meal isn’t made on your door step and the acronym fellows bring the content to you via software or an online application. Instead of trying to remember all the places where you like to go to get the latest news, it all comes to you once you order your food.

What to Do with the Funky Code

Click on any of those orange or blue RSS, XML, or RDF buttons and you see unreadable text. Some of it is readable, but reading between the <tags> is slow and difficult. In this case, you’ve got the raw ingredients of the content known as a feed. To make it easily readable, download a feed reader that can interpret (aggregate) the ingredients or sign up for an online service that can do the same.

When the software or application is ready to go, click on the orange or blue button (or “Syndicate This Page,” or whatever is along these lines) and copy the resulting URL from the address box. Paste it into the application to cook the ingredients where it’s delivered to you ready for your enjoyment. Lockergnome offers step-by-step instructions to making this happen.

Syndication Isn’t Just for Blogs

Syndication is a not a new concept on the Internet, but it’s growing in popularity as more Web sites and newsletters are churning content to turn it into syndicated files, which are fed into an aggregator. Think of it as the content that’s ready to travel anywhere it needs to go. Grab the feed and feed it to the aggregator, another way of bookmarking (or creating a favorite) a site because you wish to come back again another time. But how often did you go back to the site through your bookmarks / favorites?

I don’t use bookmarks often, but I regularly use the aggregator. Instead of schlepping from site to site in search of information, I have it all in front of me via the aggregator. The feeds are sorted in folders by topic for easy finding. If I’m writing about the latest virus or worm, then I open the security folder with the security-related feeds and scan them. Scanning content through aggregators is easier than on a Web site because it’s in one folder with headlines and maybe a short summary. On a Web site, you’re only getting the benefit of that site’s news and no where else. The folder has news from over ten resources including blogs, news sites, and newsletters.

Any content can be syndicated. It’s a matter of having the backend process in place, which is dependent on the application used for managing the content. If a site doesn’t have such resources, then there is software for entering content to create a file with the feed for posting on the site.

Most aggregators have exporting capabilities so the feed can be shared with others interested in the same topic. If you’re interested in my security feeds, I can export them into, in most cases, an OPML file and you can import it into your aggregator.

So What Does This Have to Do with Newsletters?

Spam filters are preventing readers from getting newsletters or they get lost in the spam pool. Offering a feed for the newsletter is a compromise. Readers can get the content, only instead of it coming to the email box, it comes through the aggregator. It’s a way around spam. Like everything else, it has its advantages and disadvantages:

Advantages:

• Filters can’t stop the newsletter from reaching its destination.

• The recipient will get it – if the server is down, it’ll download next time and email can get lost.

• The feed can be syndicated providing more exposure for your content.

Disadvantages:

• Rely on readers to open aggregators like they open email client, but some aggregators are built-in with an email client like NewsGator and there are online aggregators like Bloglines, which can be your home page.

• Metrics won’t be as complete, but it’s still there through the links (this is changing as we get more tools).

• Not as pretty as HTML-based newsletters.

If the feed is automatically created, what have you got to lose? You’re providing another way for your readers to get your content just like you can get pizza in different ways: go to the restaurant, have it delivered, or make it at home. More applications are adding syndication capabilities, which make the process effortless. Some have said they won’t read something unless it has a feed.

As for looks, already I’ve seen an example of a feed getting styled and that capability will be available for everyone soon enough.

Syndication works better than bookmarks. With bookmarks, you click on a site that might have the security information and arrive there to find it doesn’t. So, back to the bookmarks to click on another site. Lather, rinse, repeat. With aggregators, there is no jumping from site to site. Scan the headlines right there until you find what you need.

There was a time when we didn’t have the option to have pizza delivered to our doorstep. When we’re too tired, we know we can rely on the delivery guy. In term of content, expect to see it show up at your doorstep more often than the pizza guy plus it’s cheaper with the cost only coming from the software though there are many free options available. Syndication is here to stay and should be added to a company’s communication toolbox rather than as a replacement. Witness it by watching for RSS, XML, RDF, and Atom out there.

* Note: Click on images to see bigger image. Image will open in a new window. Click on _ in upper left corner to close the window.

AmphetaDesk 0.93 Alpha has just gotten easier to use from its earlier release. You don’t have to be a computer guru to figure it out how to use this nifty RSS reader.

Before we get into it, let me quickly answer the “What the heck is RSS? What is the big deal?” questions for those who haven’t had a chance to read up on it.

Quick RSS Introduction

Where do you go for news and updates? Which sites do you regularly read each time its updated? To stay on top of all these places, you hop from site to site getting your feed.

RSS (Rich Site Summary, if you really wanted to know) aggregators do it for you. No schlepping required. It’s similar to having Moreover right in your browser on your PC. Quickly scan the headlines and see what you want to read.

Until recently, RSS aggregators were centralized and have taken a shift to becoming decentralized. Sorry for the big words. In English, in centralized, you go to a Web site and select the channels you wish to receive and that’s where you get your updates. One example is My Netscape. Decentralized just means you get it without going anywhere. Right from your PC. Load the RSS aggregator and that’s it.

PC on Speed

I don’t condone the use of drugs, but AmphetaDesk is a good kind of drug and it’s addicting. Installing it only takes one step — unzipping the file. Being the neat freak that I am, I put it in its own folder in the right place.

Click on AmphetaDesk.exe and you’re there. The pop up screen runs the aggregator to fetch the latest news from resources already loaded into the software to give you a place to start.

Set the Settings

When I use AmphetaDesk or any news aggregator, I prefer the news item to open in a new window. After I finish reading the news item, I close the window and go back to the list looking for another item to read. Not everyone likes new windows. Never fear, you can change this setting and others.

Clicking My Settings takes you to the screen for these options:

• How should links operate? Open a new window or within the same window.
• How often to check channels? Enter the number of minutes to get news updates.
• Full path to browser? Prefer Opera or some other browser? Enter the path here to have AmphetaDesk open it.
• How long before giving up? Channels (news sources) do go down and here you indicate when it should give up looking for the server in seconds.

Easy peasy, eh? AmphetaDesk is user-friendly and doesn’t make you think when trying to figure out what everything does.

Your Remote Control

No fighting over the remote. Make other household members use their own AmphetaDesk. Adding a new of your choice channel is quick. Let’s think of a channel to add. Of course, Meryl’s Notes. Click on Add a Channel or My Channels and enter: http://www.meryl.net/blog/index.xml into the box and hit Add This Channel.

Anytime you see an orange XML icon or blue RSS icon on a Web site that you’d like to track, click on the icon and copy the URL. Paste the URL into this page. Ta-da! Now, you know the secret behind those icons. Oh. You already knew? Darn.

The difference between Add a Channel and My Channels is that My Channels lists all your subscribed channels. Click on the box to the left of a channel and hit Remove the Checked Channels button to dump it. Add a Channel lists channels for discovering a new one to add to your listing. It’s how I find some of the off-beat places like Ananova’s Quirkies.

The Channels Home link displays the latest news. The little blue globe? That’s becoming a standard icon for going to the resource’s main Web site. The envelope icon sends an email to the resource’s Webmaster or whomever is destinated to receive emails. Orange XML icon displays the raw code. Most of you won’t use it. The X deletes the resource from the list and you’ll never see its headlines again unless you subscribe.

Duh Moment

I emailed Morbus, the author of this awesome program, suggesting the ability to minimize the small screen since I didn’t need it cluttering my space (neat freak, remember?). He quickly wrote back and said to try minimizing. Duh! I thought I had tried that already. *blush* To hide the mini-screen, click on the _ button in the upper left corner of Windows. It worked on the XP. Minimize doesn’t work in all operating systems (Linux is one), so it’s not a guaranteed capability.

The software gets high fives all around. Morbus plans a few more features to give users more options. He has done a lot and deserves a break.