This and that

Posted Thursday, February 15, 2007 at 8:43pm in Blogging, PR General  | 

RSS myths exposed

No idea for a specific post in mind so thought I’d share a few things - starting with conversation monitoring and mining. I do plenty of them both and I don’t think I’d be wrong in claiming I’m something of an intermediate in each. Both are a lot tougher than one might think and doing either requires relatively high attention levels and a decent eye to skim read. Sure, anyone can read a couple of blog posts, file a few links and check the ‘influence’ of a blogger, but when you’re scouring for certain keywords using various search strings through 60+ million blogs over a length of time can become a bit of a task. Let me elaborate: I’ve read and listened to a number of bloggers talk about monitoring and how it easy it is to do because they can set up RSS feeds. “Oh yeah” they say. “We’ll set up some feeds and let the RSS do the work.”

Not true. If only.

Conversation monitoring and mining take more than technology. They require human analysis; it takes a person to cut through all the crap to find the real juicy stuff and no technology can do this I’m afraid. RSS is only the technology to help pull the content together - a human mind is required for the following steps.

While we’re on the subject of RSS I may as well touch on RSS readers. What’s your favourite? My personal fave is Bloglines. Love it. Been using it for ages and I think I may have mentioned it once or twice before. Doesn’t cut it in when you’re doing some serious monitoring I’m afraid. Neither does Newsgator, FeedDemon and a number of other well known RSS readers. Guess what does though? Google Reader. Good ole Google eh. Seriously, when you’re setting up some hardcore Boolean search queries in BlogPulse, BrandPulse, IceRocket or any other search tool Google Reader does the job.

E.g. “telecom brand X” AND “mobile” AND (”3G” OR “HSDPA” OR “convergence” OR “mobile web” OR “mobile data”)

Try it.

Something completely different

If you’re in or around Ghent, Belgium in the middle of March, you may be interested in attending the EuroBlog 2007 conference. To quote the release I got from my mate Serge:

“Participants at EuroBlog 2007 are expected, as last year, to consist of researchers from all over Europe (including many involved in the Euprera network of academics from more than 30 countries) as well as communications executives from major companies, institutions, agencies and service providers specialised in the field of online campaigns, interactive media, digital communication and issues monitoring.”

The conference runs on the 16 and 17 March 2007 at Artevelde College Ghent (Belgium).

A few links

* Mr Mayfield’s back blogging again.
* Check out this branded YouTube page by Cadbury’s Cream Egg.
* IQONS “is to fashion what MySpace is to music.”
* I’ve just found this blog and I like it.
* I have a wiki. Care to contribute?

A funny video

Keep a look out for…

…something innovative coming out of Edelman, London in the coming weeks.

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