Advocate's Studio

Need to know the facts on business and technology but don’t have the time to sift? Factbrowser bills itself as a discovery engine for research and technology, and apparently is designed to streamline the trip between asked and answered. The site taps a database that is constantly being supplemented, with a great deal of filter-ability. The intent of the service is to provide researchers with solid facts and data to support decisions and analysis.

What I like about Factbrower’s results is that it attributes research to its original source, links to the source’s homepage and the piece of content it references. The list of topics is not large in number but definitely diverse in content. There is a format filter that targets attitudes, behaviors, business models, demographics, market structure, reach and strategy. Information filters include case studies, forecasts and infographics. The Industries filter is fairly broad, while the Companies filter is pretty much focused on the biggest players. The Sources list, however, is quite large and impressive, clearly including some familiar names as well as some well-respected niche repositories. Consumer filters are broken down by typical demographics, as are the listings under the regions tab. Simply click on the topic and then filter under the foregoing lists to refine the results. Then, collect the RSS feed of those results and stay up to date as relevant news / information breaks. The idea is just great and can only get greater as they add more content and filters to the mix. The site is mobile optimized, so it is pretty easy to view what’s cooking while on the go.

Check it out and see if you can’t tailor a search to your needs - Factbrowser de-fluff’s the news and stats  for you and delivers it to your virtual doorstep.

Digital Inspiration Blog has a couple of tips on how to create RSS feeds for Google searches. These can be VERY helpful in a number of ways. One way is to keep tabs on mentions of you across the Web using Google Alerts. The key to this one is making sure that you include all names and versions of names associated with you – I also recommend using your blog names and business names too. As an added touch, you can feed those into your Google Reader (and then into your fav feed viewing app of choice on your mobile or pad) and keep track of them there. Alerts don’t have to be limited to your associated names – you can use it for any type of search. But as Amit points out, Alerts doesn’t include all results. If you want to get super tricky with it, follow Amit’s instructions using your unique Google API key to get everything on the front page. Once you have the right string, you can subscribe to the feed in your feed reader of choice.

Why go through the aggravation? If you want to stay on top of a topic, you can certainly manually search for the data whenever you want. But wouldn’t it be more efficient to simply command the information to come right to you, in a format that is easy to scan, save and share? I think so. Thanks, Amit!

Content manipulators rejoice! Your favorite web extension for Google Reader, Feedly, has finally made its long-awaited debut on the iPhone (link here)! And, in a word, it ROCKS!

I have covered Feedly and the promised iPhone version many times here in the Studio. Apps come and go, but Feedly has been a constant companion ever since I started reading RSS and blogging and I couldn’t live without it. Feedly is a browser extension that works in Firefox, Chrome and Safari (I have it in all three browsers) that syncs with your Google Reader account – your GReader stories are pulled by Feedly and actions taken in either GReader or Feedly are reflected in the other service. Feedly wins with an outstanding magazine-style layout, relevance weighting of news articles based on your reading and sharing habits and very simple to use tools for saving, sharing, commenting, and otherwise playing with the great stories found among Feedly’s greatest hits.  You can display the latest updates from feeds, blogs, and sites like Facebook and Twitter – pretty much anything with an RSS feed you can subscribe to in Reader. Feedly integrates with Delicious, Amazon.com, YouTube, and other sites as well, showing that content alongside the news stories. It offers numerous ways to add, filter, display, mark, and share content. Ultimately, Feedly delivers your own personal magazine digest of everything you’re interested in, or might be interested in, since Feedly also does a good job of suggesting content.

I have longed for the iPhone version for quite some time and, following a tip on the Feedly blog, I was able to secure an advance copy of the iPhone app last fall.  I have been playing with it ever since.

Up front, Feedly for iPhone is not the full-function Feedly web, nor should it be. The mobile app gets to the very heart of what I use Feedly for – blowing through the top content in my Google Reader folders, save what I want, share what I want and mark the content read. Feedly for iPhone also takes full advantage of the iPhone’s tactile interface, with swiping right or left to access the story headlines, swiping up or down to mark read or unread.

The app shows the digest of all articles, most recent articles, featured sources (what Feedly thinks you should read), the most popular items from the Feedly community and saved items.  The deeper you delve into one of your Feedly categories, the less recent the story. You can like items with the thumbs up and mark the entire feed read by clicking the check mark at the bottom.

There is no faster way for me to wade through my Google Reader streams than Feedly and I find it even faster on the iPhone. Plus, there is the “here and now” factor of having the app on the phone so that I can read and share a little when I am between events or meetings on the go.

Developer and founder Ed Khodabakchian has been very accessible and responsive to comments and suggestions on the interface. They really seem dedicated to providing the best possible experience with this app and it shows.

If you use Google Reader, then you owe it to yourself to try Feedly. If you are an iPhone user (or iPad user  - it works on that too with the 2x zoom), you can get a very full Feedly experience in the mobile domain. And, if you are an Android user, don’t despair – the Android client is coming soon to a mobile phone near you!

If you need to pull Web content into PDF form, and would like to tailor how much of the site’s subscription you want to “freeze”, consider this simple tool: feed2PDF. Just enter the feed URL in the box on feed2PDF’s page, select the number of items you wish to include in the PDF, and hit “retrieve.” feed2PDF will generate a PDF of the items that you can download. Simple? Yes, simple.

Big thanks to Louis Gray (link here) for breaking this one: the team behind my personal fav real-time discovery tool for blogs is putting its considerable creative force into a desktop client for Twitter. I have praised Lazyfeed in the Studio on prior occasions (link here and here). Now the Lazyfeed team has brought its hypnotic scrolling relevance goodness to your Twitter stream with Lazyscope (link here).

Lazyscope is an Adobe Air application and offers some of the same look and functionality as a traditional Twitter client in the left hand column. Tweets with links show a long URL and a quick synopsis of the subject / content. But, you can get the full content with media if click a tweet – it will show in the right hand pane of the interface. The bottom right corner shows new tweets of interest. All in that fun, scrolling Lazyfeed-like way.

What makes Lazyscope extra cool is the integration of your Twitter stream with RSS reader capabilities. You can enhance the Twitter stream with your favorite RSS feeds and really turn Lazyscope into a one-stop-shopping center. You can subscribe in the right pane or enter a URL in the appropriate box at the tope. RSS updates will then show in your stream, right along with your Tweets. In essence, you are getting the best of both worlds in the debate over whether RSS or Twitter is the preeminent news consumption tool.

Another very cool feature is the ability to subscribe to and filter out a Twitter user’s particular content. You can subscribe to one users pictures and skip the Tweets by subscribing only to their photo service, bringing viewing into Lazyscope. Or simply subscribe to a user’s YouTube channel or blog posts. Pick your poison and filter out the rest.

Seems Lazyscope is all about fine-grained news consumption on the desktop. If you use Twitter primarily as a news reader and would like a better mousetrap for doing so, check out Lazyscope, sit back and watch the fun roll in.