Blogs, Feeds, Trackbacks and Pings Part II: Terms and Feeds Steven Hupp Manager of Donor Research Chicago Botanic Garden 1
Learn about blogs and apply the knowledge I have three things I m going to do in the next 30 minutes: Define the words you ve heard in connection with blogs as a way of approaching some of the more technical aspects; show how to use a blog-related technology called RSS to create free news alerts to keep up on your prospects, and point out some blogs a prospect researcher will find useful on a regular basis. Three very different things, but they re all related to blogs and all useful. 2
Learn these terms to learn the technical side of blogs For this presentation, I want to concentrate on some of the technical terms. To get a fuller overview of the lingo you read on blogs now, I recommend the glossary on Samizdata listed in the resource guide in your handouts. 3
A permalink is what makes a blog a blog Let s take an example. Let s say you want to show a post on my blog to your boss or a co-worker. 4
You send a link, but she waits a week, and the post is no longer on top. If she waits longer, the post isn t on the page at all. (here, it s dropped down the page.) 5
To solve this problem, most blogs archive each post on a separate web page. Each of those pages has a separate URL, known as a permalink. So, send your boss the permalink URL, and she will always be able to access that post, as long as it is online (this is a screenshot of an archived page a permalink). Think of it as a notebook filled with sheets of paper: the first sheet has the latest posts, followed by each post on its own sheet that can be taken out of the notebook and passed along. This is important because linking to other posts is what blogging is about. Most blog posts contain a link to some other item. Permalinks make a post a single packet of information that can be passed along and commented on. 6
A ping sends a message through a network A ping is an automated packet of information that a system administrator sends out to confirm the status of the system on the other end of the line. It s also a verb: if you send a ping, you are pinging. It s also used metaphorically: you can ping all your friends to tell them you ve arrived at your hotel by calling them on your cellphone. In blogging, this term is used mostly in the metaphorical sense, especially in the case of a special kind of ping, called a trackback. 7
A trackback tells someone that you ve linked to them Let s take an example. Let s say Paul posts a recipe on his blog. Art links to it and posts on his blog that Paul forgot a key ingredient, let s say he forgot the chicken in his chicken salad. Paul can learn about this link in the following ways: Art emails him, Paul happens to see it while reading Art s blog, Paul looks at his referrers, which tell him where people looking at his site are coming from, or Paul and Art have trackbacks enabled. 8
With trackbacks enabled, Art s link appears at the bottom of Paul s post. Paul can see it and follow the link. Everyone who reads Paul s blog can now read it and follow the link. Here is a screenshot of the tail end of a post from the blog, The Entrepreneurial Mind. You see the end of the post, then the trackbacks start, then the comments. Trackbacks make it easier to get to other blogs that are commenting on a particular post. 9
XML is a feed-friendly markup language XML stands for extensible Markup Language. It s an improved version of HTML (HyperText Markup Language). Like HTML, it s used to create web pages. Among other improvements, it makes it easier to syndicate websites and blogs. 10
RSS sends updated web content RSS stands for Rich Site Summary or Really Simple Syndication. It s a format for syndicating websites and blogs. It takes the updated content from a website or blog and makes it available independently of the website it came from. It can be used with any sort of content. For example: the text of a blog, or news articles, or photographs, or MP3s (this is called podcasting). To take an example: To read my blog, you can go to the site, you can subscribe to the feed using an aggregator like Bloglines, or a feed-enabled site like My Yahoo, or a feed-enabled browser like Opera or Firefox. 11
Create an RSS feed to keep up with your prospects Now I d like to talk about how you can use RSS to set up free news alerts on your prospects. There are news and search sites that will create an RSS feed based on your search. I ll go through how: to use such a site to create a feed, to read and organize your feeds in an aggregator, and how you can disseminate that information you ve gathered using the tools available in an aggregator. Note: in these screenshots, I m using Boeing as an example because I don t want to use a real person s name in a public presentation. But, to be clear, with the tools I m showing you, you can create a feed on any search, including a person s name. 12
Create your feeds For this demonstration, I m using Topix.net to create my feed, but other sites can be used to create a feed from a search: MSN Search will create a feed based on a web search or a news search. Yahoo will create a feed from a news search only. To create a feed from a Google web search, you ll have to sign up for a pay service called Google Alert. The great thing about creating a feed from a search is that, once you ve set it up, the search will done automatically, and you won t have to re-enter the search terms to look at new results. And the most recent results are right at the top. 13
Topix.net is a site that lets you search the online news similar to Google News, but better. If I search for Boeing on Topix.net, we come up with a results page (this is a screenshot of that page). 14
In this screenshot, I ve scrolled down the Boeing results page a bit. On the left-hand side of the results page is an orange box. Right-click that box and select Copy Shortcut, or click on the box and copy what s in the address box (the URL). What you ve done is copy the address (the URL) of the feed that you ve just created. Now, you ll paste that address into any of the available tools that let you read that feed. 15
Read your feeds To read your feed, you need a feed reader or aggregator, like Bloglines or Newsgator. Aggregators are either web-based or stand-alone. Some integrate with Outlook, so you can manage your emails and feeds with one application. 16
Here s how to get Bloglines to read the feed you just created. See the red circle at the top? Past the URL you copied earlier into the blank box on the right. Then select Subscribe to URL and click the blue arrow. This screen shot is what comes up after you do that. The red circle in the middle shows where you can create folders and organize them, pretty much in the same way it s done with Microsoft Windows. I would recommend two things when you create a feed from Topix.net or another search engine. First, select the feed to be private (drop-down box circled at the bottom). Second, uncheck the box labeled Monitored by Bloglines (right above the bottom red circle). In addition, if you create a feed based on a personal name search, change the name of the feed a good idea is to use the ID number from your donor database. 17
You can also read feeds with some browsers like Firefox or Opera. I m not as familiar with Firefox, but with Opera, subscribing to a feed is even simpler. If you ve pointed the browser to the results page of the search, a little box that says RSS will show up in the address box. Click on it, and you ve subscribed to the feed. This screenshot shows how the Boeing feed looks in Opera. You don t have the flexibility you have with Bloglines or another aggregator, but if you just want to read feeds, it s a good way to go. 18
The easiest way to read a feed is with My Yahoo. Subscribing is a bit more complex, but it s still a matter of pasting the URL into a box. My Yahoo can be set up as a home page, so if you re willing to spend a bit of time and effort configuring the page, you can have one page that contains the latest news and web searches for your prospects. 19
The great advantage of using an aggregator like Bloglines over some of these other ways is that you can organize your feeds. You can sort your feeds in folders by development officer, by prospect or campaign or by any way you like. In this screenshot, I ve created two folders, Campaign and Sponsorship, and I ve put a feed in each one (in this example, Boeing would be a campaign prospect, and AON a sponsorship prospect). Well, congratulations! You now can take this knowledge and use it to subscribe to any feed you want, and there are many you will want to read. There are feeds from blogs (we ll look at some below). Many newspapers produce top news or business news feeds. There are even feeds of SEC documents. Now you can access any of them. 20
Send your feeds Another great advantage of using an aggregator is the options it gives you to manage and send out the information you find. 21
You can email a link. 22
You can save a link for later consideration by sending it to your clippings. 23
Or (on Bloglines) you can create an internal blog to add your own comments. One word of caution if you use Bloglines to create an internal blog for prospect information: Bloglines will let you keep that blog private and you can pass along the URL to anyone who needs it. But there is no such thing as secure once something is on the web. Once it gets out, it s like putting the genie back in the bottle. Be careful! Talk to your IT or IS department about security concerns, and think several times before adding confidential information to a Bloglines (or for that matter, any) blog. 24
Follow these blogs to learn about new tools Let s switch gears now and talk about blogs that you will find useful as a researcher. I find that blogs in related fields often have useful information. For example: SupportingAdvancement.com is both a website and a blog. The blog covers development support issues. In addition, the main site links to a number of blogs that cover the broader issues non-profits face. I also find that many management, marketing and sales blogs cover some of the same issues that we deal with in fund raising, as well as more general work-related issues. I like to think of it as vocational cross-training. For posts that more directly relate to you as a prospect researcher, I can recommend three blogs that you should follow regularly: ResourceShelf, ResearchBuzz, and Search Engine Watch Blog. 25
ResourceShelf gives you a world of new sources ResourceShelf is written by Gary Price, Shirl Kennedy and a few others. Gary Price has spoken at conferences and pops up on PRSPCT-L every so often. You may have been to this site and not realized it s a blog. 26
Here s a screenshot. The audience is librarians and professional researchers. They link to a wide variety of information sources and cover almost every topic (just consider the vast number of subjects a reference librarian must handle every day). The downside is there s a lot that is not relevant to a prospect researcher. But there s a lot that is, and there s a lot in their impressive archive, which you can access through the search function on the site. This site is a goldmine, either to follow everyday, or to use as an archive of links. 27
ResearchBuzz gets creative with online searching ResearchBuzz is written by Tara Calashain. She wrote Websearch Garage and Google Hacks. She knows a lot about search engines, and she s very creative. 28
She s always finding new ways to use search engines, and always finding new tools to get more out of search engines. We rely on search engines, and they change so much all the time, so it s important to keep up with those changes. This is the advantage of a blog like ResearchBuzz: as search engines add new features, ResearchBuzz is there telling you about it and telling you how it works. I like the fact that Tara writes in a breezy, approachable style that really draws you in. 29
Search Engine Watch Blog shows new developments Search Engine Watch Blog (SEWB) also keeps up with new developments in search engines: new features, new tools and new search engines. If you follow it, you ll know about changes as soon as they happen. If you want to keep your skills current, you need to read this blog. 30
While ResearchBuzz is aimed at researchers, SEWB is aimed at search engine marketers as well. Search engine marketers use different strategies to improve their results on Google and other search engines. They have an interest in knowing how search engines work. There s still a lot here on searching. They have very helpful reviews of new search engines, and there s a lot of teaching material on how to improve your searching, as well as more conceptual articles on how search engines fit into the larger picture of finding information. 31
Create new opportunities with blogs That s a lot of information, which I m sure is a bit confusing. We looked at some blog vocabulary words. We looked at how to set up a free news alert using RSS. We looked at some blogs you ll find useful as a prospect researcher. I hope one or more of these will open up some opportunities for you and your organization. Thank you! 32