June 13, 2007, Vol 1, Issue 16

We love search bots.(No, not Fembots, those are from Austin Powers…)

They fulfill our need to have lots of pertinent information all the time and they also pamper our need to have stuff delivered.

Groceries, Chinese Food, packages from Amazon, and info. Love that info.

Since you already know how to have a pizza delivered, today’s theme is how to get your information delivered. (You want extra cheese on that?)

RSS (Real Super Stuff)

We’ve talked about RSS readers before. You know that you can have articles and searches and blog posts all fed into a reader where you can see it all when you want.

It’s a great plan. But the other night, an online guru we know told us he had 4,000 feeds or more. How is that manageable for most of us? It’s not. It’s totally unruly. So how about having the most important feeds delivered to your email inbox?

Enter R-Mail. Simply put the URL of the RSS feed and your email address in and click on the Subscribe button.

Now, you’ll get the feed by email. Groovy baby!

Intermission.

Let’s all go to the lobby, let’s all go to the lobby….

Summer is here and since we told you last time how to get great seats on a plane, we know you’ll have a peaceful flying experience for your next vacation or business trip. Whew. Now, you need a good book.

We’ve messed with Book Crossing and others, but are really excited about Book Mooch. And not just because we like the name. (But it doesn’t hurt.)

It’s simple. You type in the books you want to give away and people send you requests for them. Then with the points you earn, you can request books from others. It’s that simple. Once you’ve read a book, you can keep it forever or put it back into BookMooch for someone else.

And if you want, you can assign your points to a charity so they can get books instead. Awww.

Watch it, buster!

Want to know when a web page changes? When new products are added? When a price drops? WatchThatPage might be just the ticket.

This service will alert you, via email or on a personal web page, when the pages you selected have changed, and collect all the new content for you. You can specify when the changes will be collected, so they are fresh when you want to read them.

Great for keeping up with competitors, industry data and fun stuff too – like shoe store sales!

Alert the media.

Or have the media alert you. Many of you use Google Alerts. You probably type in your search at Google News and then select the alert at the bottom of the page. Works great. A shortcut? Go straight to Google Alerts. They’ll email you pertinent news as it happens.

But don’t get too cozy. We’ve said it before. Google is not everything! Why not set up Yahoo! News Alerts too. They have different sources, so while there is overlap, you’ll get some different results.

Just click on NewsAlerts – top right hand corner. You can set up alerts for client, competitor, industry, and more.

And don’t forget that many of the publications you like have news alerts too.

Stump the Researcher.

A loyal reader asks: With all this talk about TB, I’m starting to feel a little paranoid – I mean sick. How can I find out what’s going around in my neighborhood?

Glad you asked.

And submit your own question – send an email!
Click here for the answer. It’ll just take a minute.

So there you have it. Bots. To make your life a little more automated. Freeing up time to play, to relax, to explore. And just think of how much more time you’d have if you unloaded some of your work onto our broad shoulders!

Enjoy the sun, be cool, stay groovy (Yeah baby!)

See you in two weeks!