Filtering Your Feeds: Marshall's Yahoo Pipes Screencast

Are you using RSS to listen, but want to know how to fine tune your listening skills?   Go no further than this excellent screencast from Marshall Kirkpatrick.

Why would you ever want to use Yahoo Pipes you might be wondering? Let's say that you have mastered using an RSS reader like bloglines or google reader or event NetVibes to read feeds.   And you've integrated reading feeds from blogs and web sites into your daily routine.  And let's say that your social media radar includes using "persistent search"  (plugging in some key words into technorati search or blog search engine and subscribing to it via RSS). 

Now, let's say you've been doing that for months, but  you're finding that your persistent search feeds are casting too wide a net and you're getting a lot of information that you're not interested in reading.   That's where Yahoo Pipes can really help you.

Here's an example of a Yahoo pipe that Marnie Webb put together that tracks nonprofit technology resources. To filter it further, Marnie used AIDERSS to filter the pipe to create the NPTech Popular Yahoo Pipe (with inspiration and help from Marshall)

What are some ways that you are fine-tuning your social media listening skills?  If using google alerts and blogreaders are great entry steps, how do you take your listening to the next level?

Comments

[Alanna]

I like to use summize once a week or so to track major discussion terms on twitter.

[Dave Schappell]

This was a really fantastic intro to Pipes -- I know it's been out for ages and most folks have already grokked this, but it's the first time that I've gotten a good understanding. I look forward to a conference sessions that helps explain to me how to stay better on top of my social-feeds (twitter, facebook, etc.) -- I definitely feel overwhelmed by them all, but do wish that I could stay on top of friend updates. Just too many different spots to check!

p.s. Beth -- why don't I have an option on your blog to be notified if other people post comments after my comments?!? Heck, if you post after this, I'll never know!

[Beth Kanter]

Dave,

That option exists as a feature here at typepad - but I can't see how to turn it on. I wonder if it is because my blog has been on this platform for 5 years? It would be such a better way to have follow conversations ...

[Dave Schappell]

I'm not sure how to activate on TypePad -- we got it working on Wordpress in a few clicks -- I'm sure you've got the "starpower" to get some action on the Typepad front, no? :-)

Happy Tuesday!