Tech Column
Technology > i-SPY
Keeping your eye on the web could help keep your business in first place.
words by > Lee Gimpel
Chalk it up to satellites, fiber optic cables or the decreasing cost of publishing in print or online. Either way, there is a ton of content in the world today. All this content breeds knowledge, which, as they say, is power. It’s not hard to fathom that more power equals a bigger, better bottom line.
But how can you possibly get a grasp on all the information that’s out there? It’s a tricky task. A report from Research and Markets found that there are more than 10,000 magazines published in the US, and Technorati tracks 60 million blogs—that’s one for every five people in America.
Contained within all that content may be the one nugget that opens a new market, generates a winning idea or tips your competitor’s hand. While you can’t digest it all, news aggregators can. Aggregators tirelessly scour the web looking for news you deem relevant. Go to sleep or take a long lunch and they’ll keep on working.
You may already be using one and don’t know it. Sites such as My Yahoo! let users tailor news to their own preferences, making it possible to create a personalized newspaper. Often, such services are pitched to the public simply as a convenient way to see the local weather, movies, sports and news in one place.
However, with a little tweaking, these services can become your own business intelligence agency.
They’ll tell you when your company or products are mentioned—be it in a tiny blog or by a mainstay of the publishing world. They can also keep you up-to-the-minute on your competitors, customers, economic indicators and the broader industry.
These services can become your own business intelligence agency.
KNOW IT ALL
To get to a blissful state of business omniscience, a range of offerings is available:
1) Start out free and easy with Google Alerts (www.google.com/alerts). Enter your company’s name—or your competitors’—and get alerts in your inbox when something hits the web’s wires.
2) Yahoo!’s alert offering (http://alerts.yahoo.com) lets you pull from a regular set of potentially important alerts (airfares, traffic, etc.) but also lets you run your own keyword searches. Choose which email address to have alerts sent to—or send them to your mobile device.
3) With a Bloglines account (www.bloglines.com), subscribe to dispatches from blogs or news feeds that interest you or tell it to continuously search for words you choose.
4) If you want your whole organization to get on the bandwagon, try NewsGator (www.newsgator.com)—the granddaddy of a field still in its infancy. Its Enterprise Server builds on the personal product’s customizable Smart Feeds but adds obligatory big-picture administrative functionality. Get updates via Outlook, web browser or mobile device.
It’s time to sign up, sit back, relax and let the news roll in.