Web News Cocktail

If you are looking for information about microblogging, you can easily type this word in google web search, and will get a massive flow off information about microblogging. However, if you want to be updated in real time this is not the right way to proceed.

In this article, I give you a way to perform technological scanning through the tags you can fin on blogs and then get them bundled together through a real time RSS flow.

Let us check the RSS structure of a few diggs and portals offering RSS feed on tags. (you may change microblogging to you favorite tag)

1. delicious: http://feeds.delicious.com/v2/rss/tag/microblogging
2. technorati (français) : http://feeds.technorati.com/tag/microblogging?authority=a4&language=fr
3. technorati anglais : http://feeds.technorati.com/tag/microblogging?authority=a4&language=en
4. Digg : http://digg.com/rss_search?search=microblogging&area=&type=&age=
5. Google : http://news.google.com/news?q=microblogging&ie=UTF-8&output=rss
6. Mybloglog : http://www.mybloglog.com/buzz/topics/microblogging/rss.xml
7. wikio: http://rss.wikio.fr/blogs/rss/a_la_une/search/microblogging
8. blogsearch.google : http://blogsearch.google.fr/blogsearch_feeds?hl=fr&q=microblogging&lr=&ie=utf-8&num=10&output=atom
9. Yahoo : http://api.search.yahoo.com/WebSearchService/rss/webSearch.xml?appid=yahoosearchwebrss&query=microblogging&adult_ok=1
10. Furl : http://rss.furl.net/items.rss?topic=microblogging

Ok, you can look for other RSS feeds of your choice and proceed the same way. I’ve already listed 10 of them this would be just enough for the time being.

You could past those feed into you RSS reader, but it is the awkward way to do it. Why not make it automatic! To that purpose you ave to go to pipes.yahoo.com create an account and then select  the create a pipe function

First you have to create a  form. On the left you have a menu with different options choose  “User input”, then “Url input“.  drag and drop it on the main board.

Let us continue with our example.  Put “microblogging” in the text input window. Check the figure below. In the prompt you may type “tag to search” or what ever phrase you can think of.

Let us check the first RSS structure with delicious.com

http://feeds.delicious.com/v2/rss/tag/microblogging

the common structure  http://feeds.delicious.com/v2/rss/tag/ and then our search tag microblogging

This time you shall add the “url builder” into the main board (figure below)

In the  base copy paste  http://feeds.delicious.com/v2/rss/tag/ “text” just below the path element must be linked to the above module.

Just after this second module (url builder) drag and drop the third module (fetch feed) and link it to the url builder as it is described in the figure below. Then link the “output” module to the “fetch feed” module.

At this stage of this tutorial we have just created a tag informaton structure for delicious.com. Just to better understand what has been said the result is available here  http://pipes.yahoo.com/thierryroget/veilletechno01

You may repeat the same process with other RSS found on the net, but sometimes the RSS structure is different. let us have a look at  the next example.

let’s have a look at the Technorati RSS structure

http://feeds.technorati.com/tag/microblogging?authority=a4&language=fr

This time microblogging is right inside the RSS feed. You will have to change the “url builder” structure to fit this new rss feed. adding  “authority=A4” puis  ”language=fr” in the query parameters. In the example “fr” is the language (french) you may change it in any other language like “en” for english.

Now you are able to understand the main principle of this tutorial, so you may repeat this process to all you rss tags and then aggregate them into a single RSS feed. To be short, the result is already available here http://pipes.yahoo.com/thierryroget/veilletechno2

You can play with other words and forget about miccroblogging and put you favorite tag. You can duplicate this pipe for your own purpose change whatever you like and start being the big shot in what ever you enjoy in life.

You may find this tutorial a little bit complicated, but I assure you that once you get used to Pipe.Yahoo you’ll be able to get the right information you need. I advise you to digg into this tutorial and make your own findings.