March 12, 2005



The RSS NewsMaster's Toolkit Is Out

 

I have finally released online the newest edition of the RSS NewsMaster Toolkit.

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This is a 60-plus pages mini-guide providing full guidance to the production process required to create automatically aggregated vertical news feeds, and topic-specific information sites by leveraging the power of RSS.

This new third edition is a complete rewrite of my previous one, which I originally published in 2003. I have doubled the number of pages, the number of tools reviewed, and my introductory section devoted to explain what are the exact steps and strategies required to create a so-called RSS Radar.


This ebook is dedicated to those who wish to ride the RSS wave and create topic-specific custom news feeds as well as to those who wish to create niche, vertical content web sites that showcase always updated information aggregated around vertical topics.

I have decided to call such highly focused information channels, RSS Radars, no matter in which format or through which type of channels they are being published (HTML, RSS, etc.).

RSS Radars can be in turn labeled in more specific ways depending on the type of content or purpose they are being used for. For example:

• Information Radars
• News Radars
• Opinion Radars
• Event Radars
• People Radars

and so on.

The reason that has brought me to write this ebook is that I see this use and application of RSS as a breakthrough opportunity for content publishers, news sites and online marketing specialists to truly leverage the potential of RSS to the nth power.

While over a year ago I was only envisaging the general traits and feel for this newly emerging application, I am back now with lots of references and good examples showcasing that RSS Radars are rapidly become a reality.

As I see it, RSS Radars are the wave of the future.

As complementary items to the marketing of this book, in the coming hours I am going to publish a RSS NewsMaster wiki in which updates to the book and new resources and tools will be listed openly by me, you and developers themselves.

I have also created an RSS News Radar covering news stories related to RSS newsmastering, and the creation of News Radars in general.

Price has also gone up sharply, from $ 29.95 to $ 99.95. The reason for this, is the value the guide now provides to anyone with enough technical skills to manage multiple RSS feeds, a possible database and some filtering mechanism to guarantee quality of content throughout. Those who want to publish, either within their organization, inside their newsletter, RSS feeds or web sites, dedicated, topic-specific information channels, have a complete and exhaustive resource on how to do this.

I have written this new guide from cover to cover, and I guarantee you this is not a technical guide in any way. It is written by a non-technical person for a wide-audience of users. If you are a non-technical person if you will find enough information and references to achieve the goal without ever touching a line of code. If you are a webmaster or a programmer you will find here a treasure trove of great tools that will allow you to create very sophisticated and highly customizable Information Radars.

All existing customers of the RSS Newsmaster's Toolkit receive a free upgrade to the new version, and anyone who doesn't find the mini-guide fitting his expectations gets a full refund within 24 hours.

The price pays also for unlimited updates to the new future editions at no extra cost.



Some interesting related notes for RSS newsmastering enthusiasts:

1) For interested buyers of Rok Hrastnik RSS book, the RSS NewsMaster's Toolkit is offered at a 50% discount rate ($ 49.95). Check MarketingStudies.net for Rok's book and once you have purchased it you will get direct access to the discounted version of my mini-guide.

2) Apparently, someone is working hard at finally programming an RSS newsmastering tool that integrates all of the features and functionalities needed to carry out this job effectively. From what i have heard the tool will be soon available as a server-installable package and it will allow you to perform exactly what I describe in detail in my mini-guide. According to anonymous sources this tool should be released to the public in the month of April. Stay tuned.

3) I have just been kindly pointed to a new RSS feed submission tool tat you may want to give a good look at. Nicole Neuberger who scouted it, reports of having used it multiple times with success.

The free service is completely web-based and it is called Feed-Shark. According to Nicole: "It's a great tool that submits your RSS feed to over 20 different sources." These include: Daypop, Feedster, Technorati, Blogdigger, Bloogz, NewsMob, Fastbuzz, EasyRSS, PubSub, WeBlogAlot, RubHub, Fuzzy Software, Blogs R Us, DevASP, Bulkfeeds, Search4RSS, Genecast, VisualBuilder, BlogMatcher, CompleteRSS, Ngoid.


Of one thing you can be sure: RSS Radars will be soon showing up at a site near you.

Conversation Tags:
 
Readers' Comments    
2005-03-19 23:01:51

Robin Good

Here is direct access to the RSS NewsMaster's Open Wiki where vendors, professionals, experimenters and others can freely contribute new emerging resources that could be useful to RSS newsmastering tasks.

http://tinyurl.com/3j7jn



2005-03-12 21:57:31

RSS enthusiast

Having read Robin's previous Newsmasters' Toolkit and his latest version, together with most if not all he's written and audio recorded on newsmastering, I can vouch 100% for the utility of this document.

As Robin himself probably was, I was a little surprised to see that Blogdigger Groups remains the only web-based text-feed splicer that's currently working (I've had no joy with Feedster Feedpapers and so was interested to read that it's currently suspended and would discount Feedroll because it's limited to pre-selected feeds) because that, together with filtering options, is the Newsmaster's dream.

Really looking forward to this new software package that's in the making mentioned in Robin's post.

Thanks Robin for the great resource.

In addition to Robin's list of resources for News to RSS (which I won't let the cat out of the bag by mentioning), one might also note that:

- Yahoo! News searches provide RSS feeds; you don't have to use the alternative Zawodny service; and

- for financial news, Yahoo! Finance can also generate RSS feeds.

P.S. The price increase might be significant, but trust me, if you want to find out about all the services and products he mentions yourself and figure out whether they're working (as I have done), it will take you a long time. The Toolkit is genuinely a very helpful resource from the Newsmastering pioneer.



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posted by Robin Good on Saturday, March 12 2005, updated on Tuesday, February 21 2006


 

 

 

 

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