by Yesterday we shared a great conversation concerning Divination, Knowing and Proprietary Learning and we discussed how you achieve knowledge through informational retrieval.
We call that method of gathering information “pull” because you are going out there on your own and “pulling” what you want towards you.
Today I’d like to discuss the idea of “push” where you set up
information to be “pushed” to you without an ongoing effort on your
side.
Are you the recipient of daily email alerts on saved search topics of
ongoing interest to you? If yes, how many alerts do you receive a day
and what services do you use to do the hunting?
Do you have personal Search Bots
scanning the internet for topics that are important to you? If so, how
and where do you employ them and how do those Bots feed you information
and what do you do with that information once it is presented to you?
Have you set up your cellphone to receive informational updates each
day?
If yes, what is streamed or sent to your handset?
Do you receive a paper newspaper every day? If so, do you read it every
day?
Are you a daily RSS feeds
reader? If yes, how many feeds do you read a day and why did you choose
to subscribe to those feeds instead of just visiting the site?
Is daily Usenet newsgroup
reading and posting still in your information flood?
If you participate in online discussions, do you receive an email alert
when there are new messages for topics you previously expressed an
interest in watching?
Do you pay a fee for any of this information that is pushed to you each
day?
Once again, please answer each of these questions in order without
cherry-picking your answers. All of these questions together build a
frame of understanding of how information is pushed to you.
Thank you again!
1. I have three email alert services that I use for severe weather information. All of the alerts transmit a message to my cellular phone.
One is subscribed to via Emergency Email. The other is through a local television station, NBC5 Chicago. The last alert is generated by my county’s local Dept. of Homeland Security/EMA/Skywarn to alert us to severe WX and activation of radio networks.
I subscribe to three just in case one or two fail. It’s not uncommon for cell phone email/pages to not work correctly or to be missed.
I also have a WX radio that picks up the tones, but sometimes the email alerts beat the radio because many severe weather alerts are issued at the Storm Prediction Center and then are transmitted to the local weather office to be broadcast. The email alert goes out at the same time it’s issued by the SPC.
I also get email alerts from several professional organizations about meetings and updates of interest to the profession.
2. I have a Yahoo search for “Northwest Indiana” news that I pick up with my RSS feed ticker. It alerts me to breaking news and stories I might have missed in the paper copy of the newspaper.
3. See Answer #1.
Do you receive a paper newspaper every day? If so, do you read it every day?
4. I get the local newspaper, The Post-Tribune, daily. I used to get the Chicago Tribune and New York Times, but I never had a chance to read the paper versions. I use their electronic services instead.
5. I have a bunch of RSS feeds:
Current WX watches/warnings from the NWS.
Urban Semiotic, of course.
My blogs — might as well have at least one RSS subscriber. I run them through MyYahoo as well since I’ve read that gets Yahoo to index your pages.
Portable Apps news.
All of the Chicago television news stations.
Problogger — one of these days the internet will make me rich!
New York Times.
CNN.com
Jill Carroll update via CSMonitor.
Gary, IN news from Topix.
Slate.
Salon.
Yahoo news search results for Gary, IN.
Yahoo search results for “Apprentice.”
I find that having the RSS ticker alerts me to stories that I might miss, since I usually don’t always go to all of the above pages every day.
Having the RSS feed scroll by keeps me informed and gives me the choice to visit, or to just read the headline. It’s a time saver.
6. I used to read Usenet when I was in law school — Valparaiso University had their internal group and it was interesting to keep up with what was going on, but I haven’t been to Usenet for a while.
7. I try to avoid any email alerts for anything that go into email box since it takes effort to read email. I try to avoid extra email. I just check back in to see what’s transpired while I’ve been away.
8. The professional email alerts are covered by my dues. Everything else is free. The EMA alerts are paid for in my volunteer time.
Gosh, Chris, you get tons of information pushed to you every day!
When you get an alert on your cellphone is it sent as a text message or as an email?
Does your phone alert you to these new messages or do they just pile up and you read them when you remember?
If you get a severe weather alert on your cellphone — what do you do with that information?
Do you act on it or do you just acknowledge it as part of your day?
How do you get your informational updates for inclusion in your http://www.sexyhiphopvixens.com site?
Do you have named searches set up for your mainline stars?
How do you find breaking talent that is unknown to the masses but that you wish to celebrate by inclusion on your site?
Hi David,
The phone alerts are relatively few. The NWS has a policy of not crying wolf, so they try not to issue too many alerts, otherwise people will stop paying attention.
I always have my cell phone on if there’s a prediction of bad weather and during waking hours. When I’m sleeping, I have the WX radio to wake me up.
If we’ve been advised to be alert and it’s getting late in the evening, I’ll keep my commercial transceiver on and let it wake me up if a radio net is activated. I don’t do that a lot.
When I get a severe WX email and I’m available to participate in the radio net by observing weather conditions, I’ll call into the net via radio to let them know I’m available. If I’m out of town, away from a radio, or otherwise unable to respond, then I hope others are available.
For Sexyhiphopvixens.com, I’ve found that MySpace does a good job of keeping me informed. All of the models have accounts — I’ve joined all of their groups to get their bulletins — and send out bulletins about what they are up to.
I also have a couple of different places that I check — Blackcuties is a good place to find new models who might or might not become famous in a couple of years. I also stop by some of the hip hop rumor sites every so often to see if there’s anything of interest about the models that might make for interesting stories.
I also check Yahoo news every so often to see if there’s any news out for the big stars in my niche. I don’t have any feeds set up because the news is infrequent and not necessarily time sensitive.
I usually try to profile someone who doesn’t have a lot of page views so that I’m one of the first to write about her. I get emails from new models asking me to profile them, as well.
Meta Smith, who is from Gary, and the author of the Rolexxx Club and Queen of Miami, emailed me asking me to write about her.
Green Eyed Mammi also emailed me pointing me to her site and asking to be included.
I like getting emails pointing to good subject matter — it makes it easy to find new talent that is aggressively seeking attention in the modeling business.
I could just focus on the “Big 3” Buffie, Melyssa, and Esther, but that would get boring. Plus, it would be fun to watch someone rise to the top — which can happen pretty quickly — from humble beginnings.
As for all of the RSS feeds, I get a lot of information, but I don’t necessarily read it all. I learned a trick in J-school to scan the index of the New York Times to keep up to date without having to spend all day getting updated.
My Firefox extensions make it easy to keep a handle on everything. Here’s a screenshot of my browser with everything running to give an idea.
Hi David,
I’m in moderation.
I’m acutally surprised my first response didn’t get picked up because of all the links. 😉
Hi Chris —
Yah! Caught in Moderation this time! Akismet left you alone. I think if you have more than 4 hotlinks you get put automatically in Moderation.
Love the screenshot! You have a lot of toolbars!
😀
When I checked the “Rolexxx Club” book on Amazon, I thought it was funny that Amazon also presented a list that said:
Sometimes you don’t have to read the book to know what the book is about!
Thanks for the extra detail on the tools you use to keep your fan sites alive and happy. That’s all helpful information!
Information contained in RSS feeds can make one money, if you know what to look for.
This just scrolled by:
Nearly 19,000 properties behind on taxes
Love it, Chris!
How, exactly, are you getting RSS headlines to scroll? Is it in your browser via Yahoo! or something else?
Hi David,
The “also bought” list looks like fun summer beach reading. 🙂
I use RSS Ticker to get the scroller. It makes my browsing experience feel like I’m watching a cable news channel. At work, I can put my working window over the browser and still keep up with the headlines.
I took at look at some of the “also bought” books and Tanika Tynch’s biography on Amazon.com stood out.
I might get her book just because she’s had such a rough life and has been able to overcome hurdles that would sidetrack most people.
I ran author Tanika Lynch‘s name through Michigan’s Offender Tracking Information System database and saw that she’s not scheduled to be released from prison until she’s 67-years-old!
Correction — Ms. Lynch could be released as early as 2010. I misread the sentence information.
Chris!
Thanks for the tip on the RSS ticker! I’m using Camino as my Mac browser right now — some folks say Firefox doesn’t work well yet on Intel Macs — but I will hold great hope I can one day return to my Firefox love!
Thanks for the heads up on Tanika! It looks like she has an amazing story. I’m glad to see she has so far used her incarceration to the greater benefit of her mind. It’s wild how you were able to find her in the system!
Q: Are you the recipient of daily email alerts on saved search topics of ongoing interest to you? If yes, how many alerts do you receive a day and what services do you use to do the hunting?
A: I get similar notify from several yahoo groups set up to do that. Between 5/10
Q: Do you have personal Search Bots scanning the internet for topics that are important to you? If so, how and where do you employ them and how do those Bots feed you information and what do you do with that information once it is presented to you?
A: No
Q: Have you set up your cellphone to receive informational updates each day? If yes, what is streamed or sent to your handset?
A: No I do not have a cell phone.
Q: Do you receive a paper newspaper every day? If so, do you read it every day?
A: No – I have a round trip of 20 miles to get one – when I do get it – it gets read cover to cover.
Q: Are you a daily RSS feeds reader? If yes, how many feeds do you read a day and why did you choose to subscribe to those feeds instead of just visiting the site?
A: No
Q: Is daily Usenet newsgroup reading and posting still in your information flood?
A: Guilty.
Q: If you participate in online discussions, do you receive an email alert when there are new messages for topics you previously expressed an interest in watching?
A: Sometimes
Q: Do you pay a fee for any of this information that is pushed to you each day?
A: No
Once again, please answer each of these questions in order without cherry-picking your answers. All of these questions together build a frame of understanding of how information is pushed to you.
Thank you again!
Thanks, Nicola!
I’m surprised you don’t have a cellphone and that you don’t use RSS but that you still are involved with Usenet.
Do you feel like you’re trapped in a technological time warp?
😀
I live in a valley – I live in a county of valleys – we have little or no mobile reception. Pretty pointless around here. We can’t even get a dependable satelitte signal for the TV – let alone a mobile signal.
I guess RSS might be my next move – maybe you can answer me a question – if I would get the whole page – or just text? If is just the text – I wont bother – I quite like the feel of the blogs I visit and I suspect that will be lost with RSS.
In many respects we chose to live in this time warp. We do have broadband now which makes use of the computer much faster and much more enjoyable. If anything I am probably too dependent on the computer – whereas others my spread their load across other technologies.
Usenet was the first ……….. and will probably be the last – along with IRC which I am addicted to and have been for the last 12 years.
Nicola —
That’s interesting cellular service isn’t really available where you live.
RSS is gaining speed and a content pipe. Your question about getting the full page is an important one. It depends on the RSS publisher and on the RSS reader you’re using. There are some blogs that only send down a partial RSS feed to force you to click through to read the rest in your browser so they can get their ads to load for your eye. I hate those sites and I will not add them to my RSS feed.
This blog sends down a full feed. What you read here in a browser is exactly what is sent to your RSS reader and that includes the images! You won’t have the same formatting or sidebar information via RSS but you won’t want for missing any article text. You can also subscribe to the comments feed here via RSS that will send you all the comments across all the articles as they are posted live. That’s a lot of fun!
Make sure you get a good RSS reader that won’t cheat you out of views or images or setting lots of preferences. I use NetNewsWire on the Mac and on Windows I liked Feed Demon a lot.
I’m an old Usenet boy myself! It’s easy to find information and to post quickly because the emphasis is information via text, not on heavy HTML and presuppositions by design.
Thanks for the information – I will let you know if I go that route.
You are very welcome, my friend, and thanks for giving such excellent, detailed answers!