By S. Housley
Ego searches are free and simple searches designed to monitorblogs and news portals for mentions of your company, product,competitors or other specific keywords. Conducting ego searchesnot only allows you to stay informed, but also allows you tomaintain a strategic advantage over competing companies. Anumber of new Internet services are freely available that makethese 'ego searches' painless and easy.
Dynamically created keyword based RSS feeds, update in your RSSreader or news aggregators, each time new information containingthe keyword appears in the searched resources. The dynamic feedsmatch requests against new information, as it comes online inreal time. The following free services allow for RSS feed egosearches.
Google News - Simply conduct a keyword search of GoogleNews and then click the text that says "RSS" then savethe url of the RSS feed into your news reader. Every time a newarticle with that keyword appears in Google News the feed inyour RSS reader will automatically update.
BlogPulse - Find out what is being said about yourproducts, company or your industry in the blogosphere. Conduct akeyword or url search on BlogPulse. Click the orange RSS iconabove the search results and save the feed in your reader. Eachtime the keyword appears in a blog indexed by BlogPulse you willreceive a new item in your feed reader. Another feature ofBlogPulse is it will graph the keyword occurrences, providing apicture representation so that trends can be easily visualized.Hovering over the lines of the graph will provide details ofactual blog mentions.
PubSub - Search on a keyword, then save and add the feed toyour RSS reader using the icons provided. Optionally with PubSubyou can direct your search to only alert you of posts inspecific areas of interest including Press Releases, SEC/EDGARFilings, Newsgroup Posts, or Weblog Entries
Technorati - Create watch lists, by entering the searchterm add item to the watch list and then scroll to the bottomclick the blue RSS icon to obtain the url of the RSS feed thatcan be added to your reader. Technorati is a real-time searchengine that keeps track of what is going on in the blogosphere.In order to setup a watchlist you will have to create aTechnorati account.
Ice Rocket - Simply search Ice Rocket then click theRSS 2.0 button to obtain the url of the RSS feed that containsyour search term. Add the url to your RSS reader ornewsaggregator.
Find Articles - Traditional media channels can even bemonitored using RSS. FindArticles routinely scans magazines andpublications for keyword mentions. Conduct a search then click"RSS Alert" to obtain the url to the RSS feed. Add thefeed to your reader to receive instant notification of newarticles.
NewsTrove - NewsTrove indexes millions of news articlesfrom a myriad of sources. Build an RSS feed on any topicimaginable. Enter your search words in the search box. Click'Search' click the orange XML icon on the right side of thesearch results page and save the feed to your news reader.
BlogDigger - BlogDigger monitors the blogosphere andgenerally what is said daily in the blogs. Conduct a search onBlogdigger and click the orange XML icon to retrieve the url ofthe search feed. The feed should then be added to your RSSreader.
DayPop - Conduct a search and click the icon on the rightthat says XML, save the feed to your RSS aggregator. Only themost recent search results will appear.
Yahoo News - Conduct a search then click "viewas RSS" in the right column save the feed in youraggregator. The feed will check Yahoo news for mentions.
Overall, ego searches are an excellent way to stay informedand maintain a strategic advantage over competitors. Knowingexactly what your online competitors are doing provides acompetitive edge that can be used to your advantage. Keyword RSSfeeds can be used to monitor key phrases for trademark abuses ormonitoring the effectiveness of a specific press promotion.
Although they sound daunting ego searches are simply goodbusiness sense.
Article Source: www.ArticlesBase.com
