Search Tip Report: Information You Can Use

A monthly newsletter from Eipert Information Services

July/August 2004 Number 6

Search Tips Report was a free email newsletter from Eipert Information Services, featuring practical tips about business and sci/tech information sources and research strategy for you to apply in your own business. See the archive of past issues.

In This Issue

* Searching blogs for rumors and buzz
=================================================================

Searching blogs for rumors and buzz

Are there any current rumors circulating about your company? What are people in a specific industry talking about? Try searching blogs and discussion forums to look for thoughtful commentary on current issues from industry experts; read what people are saying about your company or its products; learn how popular culture may affect your marketing; or follow what is happening at a conference you couldn't attend.

A blog (web log) is essentially a journal, often updated daily, that is available on the web. It is most often written by one individual, and is informal. Blogs, in increasing numbers (3 million and growing) range from personal narratives ("what I did today") to insightful comments; they vary in quality, and provide opinions rather than peer-reviewed or verified information. The bias and background of the writer are usually quite obvious, however, and as long as you keep the source and possible lack of balance in mind, they can be useful. Bloggers usually link to other blogs, websites or articles to document or illustrate their points.

Blogs increasingly are being written by individuals or groups representing an organization, rather than being strictly personal. Journalists, columnists, and investment analysts may have blogs.

Discussion forums, newsgroups, or email discussion lists, on the other hand, have contributions by many people and comprise a community of sorts. Sometimes blogs are connected with forums, or bloggers may allow (and display) readers' comments so that the communication is not simply one sided.

**Why blogs?

Blogs are current. Since they are a very good way for anyone wanting to publish or promote a point of view on an immediate basis, they can be searched to find those very current points of view.

Current blogs and archived blog posts can be searched to help you find the useful nuggets of information within the unorganized and chatty universe of blogs. The major search engines do allow you to find information in blogs at a fairly current level, but, as usual, specialty search services work better (more below).

Some companies are trying to figure out the best way to use blogs to develop brand loyalty and enable personalized communication with customers. Sun Microsystems is one of the pioneering companies that allows its individual employees to blog on the company's public website.

**Track blogs

Use software software known as a news reader or aggregator to track specific blogs of interest as well as news feeds from major news sites and other sites that have this capability (look for colorful RSS or XML icons). Download this software (see a list at http://dmoz.org/Reference/Libraries/Library_and_Information_Science/Technical_Services/Cataloguing/Metadata/RDF/Applications/RSS/), or use a web-based reader such as Bloglines (http://www.bloglines.com) or MyFeedster (http://feedster.com). Aggregators gather headlines into one place so you can quickly check stories from your subscribed sites without going to the individual websites. For more on the emerging potential of web feeds, which goes far beyond just blog web feeds, read the tutorial at: http://blog.contentious.com/archives/000179.html.

**Examples of blogs

Below are selected examples of blogs to demonstrate the range of types of blogs that might be useful in a business setting.

Competitive Intelligence: Lessons, Thoughts & Observations on Competition, Intelligence, Strategy & Tactics in Business & in Life:
http://www.aurorawdc.com/ci/000001.html

Interesting News and Events Related to the Risk Assessment Industry:
http://radio.weblogs.com/0120429/categories/newsEvents/

JavaOne Conference Coverage Blogs: http://java.sun.com/javaone/blogs/index.jsp

Blogs by Jupiter Research analysts: http://weblogs.jupiterresearch.com/

Credentialed and unofficial bloggers are reporting from the major political conventions for the first time. Current Democratic Convention bloggers are listed at http://www.conventionbloggers.com/.

**Locate blogs

Browse or search Syndic8.com (http://www.syndic8.com/) or News Is Free (http://www.newsisfree.com/) to find blogs and other RSS feeds of interest.

**Search blogs

Blog articles will be found by Google and other general search engines in a fairly up-to-date manner, but try searching more specifically for blogs and other RSS feeds using one of the following.

Faganfinder: http://www.faganfinder.com/blogs
Feedster: http://www.feedster.com/
Daypop: http://www.daypop.com
Blawgs: http://blawgs.detod.com/: a site that searches law blogs only

**What's going on

Most talked about news stories and related conversations in the last 12 hours (http://www.technorati.com/cosmos/breakingnews.html)

Most talked about blog articles:
http://blogdex.net/
http://www.technorati.com/live/top100.html

-----------------------------------------------------------------

*** Contact Sue Eipert (seipert@eipertinfo.com) at Eipert Information Services for customized research of proprietary business and sci/tech databases, as well as the Internet, for marketing, R&D, strategic planning or litigation support. ***

Eipert Information Services
seipert@eipertinfo.com

Home - Sci/Tech - Market/Industry - Search Tips - About Us / Contact Us