More on Customized Yahoo Feeds
December 10th, 2004The other day, I mentioned that you can get an RSS Feed for ALA by using the “inurl” search at Yahoo News. I played on Yahoo News again this morning (querying different organizations and associations) and found 2 more that may be useful.
+ White House press releases (RSS Feed)
+ American Medical Association Press Releases (RSS Feed)
Here’s my reasoning why this is very important for content providers (this includes the federal government, non-profit organizations, even companies). Today, I received 3 news clips from my ALA Feed. The first dealt with a new childrens’s book list, the second involved a listing of the library budgets/bonds/tax votes that passed during November, and the third mentioned the ALA’s support of a new bill that passed today in Congress.
If I hadn’t created these feeds, I wouldn’t have seen these news releases and I wouldn’t have been better informed about my profession. Why? Because I don’t go to the ALA site. As I mention in my presentations, browsing the Web doesn’t work for me anymore. The mere fact that I can now get ALA news in my aggregator will push me to read content that I wouldn’t regularly go after (it comes to me). And it makes me a well informed professional, which, in turn, will enable me to provide better service to my clients. Of course, I think that ALA should be providing their own feeds, but that’s a post for another day.