Extra! Extra! Reading all about it…

Posted by Jim Stroud

March 4, 2006

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Somebody asked me, “Jim, how do you keep up with all the news you write about?”

To which I replied, “I use Keebler Elves. Not only do they make great cookies, but they are very well informed and send me tips from time to time.”

Well, I must confess to you (and that person), that I do not in fact rely on the updates of Keebler elves. Although I do stand by my assertion that they make great cookies. (Yummy!)

No the truth of the matter is that I use some cool Microsoft products to monitor what is out there and the realy good news about that is that these products are available to you. Let me walk you through a couple of them and show you what I mean.

I have been harping on India for awhile now (and will continue) and not only me, but much of the business world as well. Let’s say I wanted to know what was going on in India today. Well, I would pop over to MSNBC and begin a search there. I would then simply type in “India” in the search box and hit the green “Search” button. (See screenshot below)

Once I hit the search buttons, I get fabulou results faster than you can say “Sim-sim, sala-bim.”

Okay, so you have seen great results from MSN Search before and are not impressed. Ahhh… but have you noticed the little orange button in the bottom left corner? Well that is a link to a page where you can subscribe to the results of this query via a newsreader. (If I am losing you with that, don’t worry. We still have a ways to go. ) Below is ascreenshot of the orange button I was talking about.

Now once you click the orange button, you will be taken to a page that looks like the one below. (I will explain the arrow in a minute.) What you are looking at is RSS feed for your search. When you subscribe to any RSS feed from MSN Search, you’ll get the top ten search results for this query delivered to your RSS Reader. You can subscribe to any number of RSS feeds of MSN Search results and view them all in your RSS Reader without re-running your search queries.

Now about that arrow… If you already have a newsreader like My MSN, My Yahoo or Bloglines that’s fine and dandy. Simply click one of those buttons and you are good to go. However, if you do not have a newsreader already and/or you are open to something different, let me show you something.

One of my favorite newseaders is Windows Live. (See below)

Now if I wanted to add the RSS search results to my WIndows Live newsreader (this is where the arrow from the last screenshot comes in), I simply take the RSS feed address and copy it. (CTRL +C)

I then log-in to the newsreader. (Don’t worry, its a free service.) and click the “Add Content” + sign on the left, which opens up options on the right side of the screen. I choose the “Add Content” advanced options link. (See arrow?)

Once you have clicked the “Advanced Options” link, add the RSS Feed URL that you saved a moment ago into the form where it says, “Subscribe to a specific feed by entering the URL below:” (See arrow #1 below) Once you have done that and clicked the Subscribe button, the result of that action will appear in the left column. (See arrow #2)

Now with those simple steps done; instead of going to MSNBC and do a sew search everyday, you can simply go to Windows Live (or the newsreader of your choice) and read the latest headlines in one place. (See below)

Now let’s take this a step further. This is a useful trick for so many reasons. How many? Let me count the ways…

Recruiters can use this technque to monitor layoffs reported in the news.
Searchfirms can use this to monitor potential business opportunities
Companies can use this trick to monitor what their competition is doing.

There may be a few other uses, but I have been rattling on enough.

I would be curious to know how many others are using RSS feeds in their processes and how they are being leveraged to further their recruitment goals. Drop me a line and let me know?

E’ ya’ later…

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