| President’s
Letter
RSS: Ready for some stories?
by Steve Roll, National
President; Senior State Tax Law Editor, State
Tax Report
 I
used to think blogs were a waste of time.
But after hearing business-to-business (B2B)
press blogger Paul
Conley give an interesting
talk at ASBPE’s 2006 national conference,
I decided to give blogs a
try.What I discovered is they are a great
resource for finding information
about specialized topics and can help generate
story ideas.
Watching what bloggers do can yield insights
into numerous trends.
The first obstacle to becoming acquainted
with blogs is the vast
number of them — reportedly more
than 50 million worldwide.
One way to find the most popular blogs
is to go to Technorati.com.
In addition to listing the top 100 most
popular blogs, Technorati offers a directory
for
finding blogs on different topics. One
of the most popular blogs is Lifehacker.com,
which
offers tips about computers, software,
Internet applications, and general productivity.
The B2B watchdog blogger
For B2B
journalists, Paul
Conley’s
blog about the business press is
especially worthwhile. For the
past year, Conley has called on publisher
Ziff
Davis to stop inserting
ads in the
text of its online stories. It was
his blog posts that led ASBPE to clarify
its ethics
guidelines to
expressly prohibit the practice. Conley,
who was recently included as
a “personality” on Folio: magazine’s
blogger section, will deliver the keynote
address at ASBPE’s
National Editorial Conference in Kansas
City, July 24–25. Read about
Conley here.
Additionally, ASBPE launched
its national
blog last month. B2B journalists
and
executives
will be invited to share insights
about our industry. Keeping up with blog posts
Another
quirk about many blogs is they are not updated
on a regular schedule,
so checking
them for new content can be time consuming.
The answer is an RSS feed reader. “RSS” stands
for “Really Simple Syndication.” But a more accurate
name for this device
would be “ready for some stories.”
An RSS feed reader is like an e-mail
account that automatically notifies
you when a
particular blog has new content.
RSS feed readers also work on many
Web sites.
The
New
York Times and other newspapers have
RSS feeds for particular topics.
For example,
if
you are interested in tracking all
of the health stories in the The
New York
Times you
can subscribe to the RSS feed on
that
topic.
RSS feed
readers come in different brands. I use Bloglines. Google
also has a feed
reader. Some Web browsers such as
Firefox and Safari have
feed readers built
into them.
Following blogs can provide
insights about how to navigate your way
through the
world of Web 2.0. It was from Gretchen
Rubin’s
blog, The
Happiness Project, that
I got the idea of starting an ASBPE
group
on Facebook. Judging from the
popularity of her
blog and her
Facebook group — which
has more than 900 members — I’d
say the book
she is currently writing about
happiness will be a success.
So make
2008 the year of the RSS feed. And remember
to subscribe
to ASBPE’s new
national blog.[Web
editor’s
note: See the right-hand column
of the blog to subscribe via
RSS or via email.]
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