Conversationblog

One of the questions that I get on a regular frequency has to do with information overload. During my workshops I explain the impact of blogs on business communications and I do cover RSS as well. I think this little piece of technology is really the basis for the changes in the media landscape.

Once people understand how much information there is on the web - and how many bloggers write about their brand and products/services I do get the question of "What about information overload ? - How can we not get overwhelmed with all those blogposts ?"

Well, apart from using single RSS feeds from single blogs there are several online services that allow you to really "micro define" the information you will receive through your RSS reader.

The 2 easiest ways to manage the information you will track are:

1. mix feeds: in short, you mix all the feeds you found on a specific overall subject into 1 uber feed.
2. you take this uber feed and create alerts based on your specific keywords.

By doing this you do not limit your information but you rather target and define when and on what specific word or concept you want to receive alerts or information.

With regards to mixing feeds and combine them into one - the best article to read is the one from James E.Lee's blog. There you will find all the information you need to start combining information streams.

Creating alerts.... Several tools exist out there; here are 2 I use and think are very relevant in this space:

Feedrinse: this online service allows you to "upload" your collection of feeds to track & then set up filters based on your keywords, author, tags etc... This exercise results in targeted feeds on the topics you specified.

ZapTXT goes a bit further; again it allows you to work with keywords and concepts but it will also alert you through email, instant messaging and text messages on your mobile. Close to what Rasasa does, an international online service created by a Dutch company.

For more on this subject read this excellent article on Splashcast, again another service that promises to take full advantage of RSS feeds.

Have fun with this. I am off to yet another conference, this time in the beautiful city of Prague.

Technorati : feedrinse, keywords, monitoring, rasasa, rss, syndication, zapTXT