So many news sites and blogs to read, so little time. One solution for efficient Web wandering: build your own news site, easily, incorporating headlines from all your favorite outlets.
Last week, I wrote about how RSS can make your life easier. Portals such as Yahoo and MSN have recently discovered the power of RSS, too. In the past few months, both My Yahoo! and My MSN have improved their services dramatically by incorporating RSS and expanding the choices of content you can add to the pages.
As a result, you can create your own news site by picking and choosing headlines from any site that’s either a partner with one of the portals or offers RSS feeds.
Both sites work almost identically. On either My Yahoo! or My MSN, click the “Add Content” option at the top of the page. Enter search terms to find blogs or other sites with RSS feeds that are already in MSN’s or Yahoo’s databases. Or you can add any other RSS feed not already listed by simply entering the RSS feed URL into the search box.
You can also instantly add content to either of these personalized pages by clicking on the Add-to-My-Yahoo! or Add-to-My-MSN buttons you’ll find on various Web sites and blogs. They look like this:
(Click these, for example, and you’ll instantly get headlines from CyberJournalist.net, my blog, added to your “My” pages)
If you haven’t tried My Yahoo! or My MSN recently, I urge you to take a look. They’ve both improved recently. In addition to incorporating RSS, they’ve made it much easier to add and move around your content so you can put the headlines in whatever order you prefer. Both sites incorporate e-mail as well, so if you use Yahoo e-mail you should try My Yahoo! and if you use Hotmail you should try My MSN.
(Disclaimer: I work for MSNBC.com, which is a Microsoft-NBC joint venture. MSN is a Microsoft property.)
WHAT RSS FEEDS DO YOU RECOMMEND?
Send in any suggestions you have of RSS feeds useful to journalists and I may share them in a future column and add them to this collection of RSS feeds for journalists.
Please send them to poynter (at) jondube.com.
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