The Fresh Marketer Lifestream

I have a Lifestream.

What’s that? Well, it’s an RSS feed of basically everything I write or look at online. I’ve combined my blog’s feed with my Google Shared feed and my Twitter feed. I’ll also add in my Flickr feed once I finally get around to uploading my pictures into Flickr (Facebook photo albums are way too closed off from the rest of the Internet for me to use).

So if you’re already subscribed to my RSS feed, you’ll start getting posts that won’t be written by me. These are from my Google Shared site. You can also monitor the posts I think you’ll find interesting by looking at the “What I’m Reading” widget. For those of you who haven’t subscribed to my feed yet, take a second and click the “Subscribe to my Lifestream” link or add the following address to your favorite RSS reader:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/TheFreshMarketerLifestream

Also, if you have any problems subscribing, post a comment or send me an email and I’ll help you get it setup.

P.S. If you want any individual feed, here are the addresses:

Google Shared:
http://www.google.com/reader/public/atom/user/09913530811447969166/state/com.google/broadcast

Blog:
http://freshmarketer.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default

Twitter:
http://twitter.com/statuses/user_timeline/1219701.rss

“What I’m Reading”

If you haven’t noticed it before (especially for anyone who reads this blog via the RSS feed), I have a widget that’s entitled “What I’m Reading”. This can be a misleading title. Allow me to explain:

This widget is powered by Google Reader, which is an RSS reader that I use to go through my RSS feeds. As I cull through almost 200 posts each day, I “share” posts that I think people who read this blog will be interested in reading as well. These “shared” entries end up on my “What I’m Reading” widget. This means you’ll only see posts relevant to this blog’s topic in this widget. I set this up mostly for my lovely family, who often asks me about the next cool thing on the Internet. Instead of sending around emails about what’s happening, I can easily send them to my RSS feed. Now, what would be really cool, would be to figure out someway to combine my blog’s feed with my Google Shared feed. If anyone knows how to do this, please let me know.

Want to read more of what I’m reading?

If you click on the RSS icon next to the widget title, you can subscribe to a feed of what I’m sharing. If you subscribe, expect about 10-20 posts a day on cool technology, hot marketing topics, and other nifty things I find online.

Want to Setup Your Own Google Share Feed?

Read this link, and then email me if you have any other questions.

Subscribing to a Blog: 3 Things to Look For

Every blog has an RSS feed. That is, an XML file that is continually updated with the latest postings from the blog’s author. You can subscribe to the RSS feed using an RSS reader (my fav is Google Reader). With so many choices, it can be easy to become overloaded with subscribed feeds. How do you cut through the clutter? Here are a couple key things to look for when deciding whether to subscribe to an RSS feed:

1. Frequency - How often does the blog’s author post? If you’re busy during the day and a blog publishes 30 posts in a day (like Engadget or Boing-Boing), you’re going to be overwhelmed trying to keep up with the posts. It’s best to look for blogs that publish once a day or a few times a week with quality content.
2. Originality - Blogs exist for people to comment on…anything. Oftentimes, this means blogs comment on other people’s blog posts. This means that you can find five posts about the same topic (i.e. Apple’s iPhone, Britney Spears, or Twitter) in a single day on your blogroll. Seek out blogs that have something new to say. Look for thought leaders rather than followers.
3. Content - Your time is valuable. Don’t waste it on content that doesn’t add something to your life. What you read should be genuinely entertaining and/or informative. Don’t read a blog because you think you should. If you can’t get into it, unsubscribe to it and move on. There’s so much content out there, it’s easy to find a new blog to fill its place.