Aggregator Blogs :: Any uses for this in the business world?
I’ve been working on a project for my classes and now wonder what value this may have in the business blogging world.
Aggregator blogs. See an example of one I’ve created to expose students to various writers on the Web. Writers :: Combined posts of various writers on the net. The blog includes excerpts from various “Journalism, Copywriters, Direct Marketing, Speechwriters, PR, (and) Marcom” authors.
With the rising adoption of RSS, does this type of blog show promise for some business sites?
Consider this possible integration. You have a travel agency. Using tools like Yahoo! News - RSS to create custom feeds of news articles by “your search term(s)” and target particular countries or regions.
The downside? Some news may lead to competitors. But, is that bad? Comparisons. Transparency. Would this not exhibit a confidence in your products/services?
A more practical application might be for an internal/intranet blog for you and/or your employees. Password protected from the outside, you custom build your tracked feeds so you can keep up on the latest news and activities of your competitors - new industry trends/developments. Since it is internal, you could enable ‘comments’ function of a blog and have running discussions among teams working on a particular project. Then, your employees track the ‘comments RSS feed’ of the blog with one simple link - tracking numerous articles - and you have a great research/brainstorming tool.
Or, to just read and follow customized feeds, a “Feed on Feeds” application might work best. It could still be internal/intranet. See this implementation I created sampling Writer Blogs and Writer Resources. A frames view layout is also available.
The upside of both these options is that the software platforms are opensource. Free. Use WordPress or Feed on Feeds.
So, what do you think? Any applications you can see for this type of ‘business blog’ add-on?
Filed under: Business Blogging, How to Blog, Robert
The competition thing is really interesting. I guess all this time I had been thinking about RSS feeds simply for the purpose of reading custom content for your own enjoyment. I think the whole idea of using them to track news about competetors is awesome. That would definately give any company an edge.
The best example of an aggregator blog that I know of is the Roth Report, which is actually a hybrid website that incorporates blog posts into a webpage.
Aggregator blogs would probably work best for trade groups composed of small business looking to cross market. For example, an aggregator blog on weddings could include posts from a photographer, a florist, a dress shop, a wedding coordinator, etc. Neither of the businesses are in direct competition with the other; however,each small business benefits from the increased traffic generated by the common aggregator blog. In this case the aggregator blog works much like the webring model.
Another concept for an aggrgator blog would be the construction of a blog-based newspaper. For example, the business page could be made up of cilumns and news articles from business blogs. The page is easily constructed using the first/most current article from each blogs RSS feed.
(This idea came to me due to recent blogosphere discussions regarding the FEC limiting political blog speech, as political blogs aren’t online newspapers, and therefore, don’t (in their eyes) enjoy the same protections of main stream jouranlists and newspapers. An aggregator blog used as a newspaper might pass legal scrutiny.)
As for the inclusion of a compeititor’s post in your own blog, the problem with that concept lies in the use of my posts on my competitor’s blog. Why would I want my competitor to benefit from my hard work in producing regular, high quality content? If I’m doing all the work and hundreds of online competitors are free to use my posts to attract my potential customers, what’s my payoff?
Great points, Timothy. Thanks. The scary part is, your ideas are just what I’ve been wanting to do for the various programs in our department. As in, one for PR, Radio-TV-Film, Communication & Journalism.
I was actually thinking of creating a 3 or 4 column page that does what Roth’s site does. Cool. Thanks for the example. In fact, I think I will make one that does something like that - and, do it with a wedding theme. I’m thinking the students in my classes will enjoy that. Most are seniors and many (not all) are talking about marriage.
The newspaper format is what I’ve wanted to do in oder to turn on the Journalism faculty to the idea, too. You’re making me feel good that this might actually get their attention.
I agree with you on the competitor’s posts. Perhaps those are best suited for the ‘private intra/extranet’ types of aggregator blogs. Then, everyone ‘in-house’ may comment and get discussions going per post.
Thanks for the tips. I’ll let you know when the examples are up and running.