The new Crestwood news letter (it's up to the Board)
Call or write your Alderman and tell them if you want it or not, it's up to us to tell them what we want, so please do it.
(click on the letter to enlarge it.)
Tom Ford
NO. 710
posted by Crestwood Independent at 08:00
10 Comments:
Looks like a good idea to me. I like the protection of recipients e-mail addresses. More info is better than no info.
BTW, did anyone notice that info on the "animal control study group" is posted on the "animal control board" page? I stumbled upon it after I saw the article in the newspaper. Hope this is not a devious plot by the "animal control radical party". (J/K)
The city should utilize the web as intended by using RSS feed for those technology savvy 18-54 year old folks.
What is RSS you ask?
RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication.
RSS is the format for distributing news and other web content. When you put content into RSS and send that content to other people or websites, it's called a feed.
Feeds are very powerful. They attract the interest of the search engines and they reach new audiences.
Every blog has a feed. Most of the new social media sites are using RSS Feeds to distribute their content. Twitter runs on RSS feeds, Facebook and MySpace use feeds.
You can add feeds to your news and tap in to the power of the social web. A feed will increase the reach and visibility of your news content.
What can RSS Feeds do for the city?
RSS feeds are not just for blogs or social media sites.
You can use RSS to distribute many kinds of web content.
news - press releases
educational articles
videos
destination information
tech support updates
product news
specials
announcements
new listings for a realtor
job vacancies
The list is almost endless. Every business has several types of content they can put in an RSS feed.
RSS FEEDS CONTINUED:
What goes in the RSS FEED?
You can add text, audio, images, logos and video to a feed. The feed contains an index - a list of items - and each one is identified by a link o the content on your site. Most RSS feeds include a title for the link and a description of the content. When syndicating your content, use an eye-catching title and interesting description of the full content. This way you encourage your readers to click through and read the full article. You can also choose to syndicate the full article.
RSS FEED CONTINUED:
What DO RSS FEEDS DO?
RSS feeds keep your audience constantly updated.
They allow people to see your content without having to go to the website. Now that may sound like a bad idea, but in today's fast-paced world, anything that saves us time and frustration is valued. How many websites have you intended to go back to and then forgotten about them? Even those we bookmark don't get visited.
With RSS feeds, once someone subscribes the content comes directly to them.
Here are some examples.
Let's say you update your website with product news regularly. If a visitor doesn't come back to your site and see all those updates, she won't know about them. But with a feed she automatically gets the content updates. She may not purchase immediately, but at least she has seen each update. When she does want to buy, she will come to your site.
For a software company, tech articles or support updates get posted on the site. Unless the users remember to visit the site regularly, they could miss important data. Feed it to them and they get it every time.
News is perfect content for a feed. The Internet is now the number one choice for news in the 18 - 54 year old age group. And since Google changed the way they display web search results to what they call Universal Search, news content is now seen on the main Google web search pages. Studies show that images and news are in fact the most clicked content on a web search page now.
There are so many sources of news that your visitors, and the journalists who cover your industry, won't come to your site every day. But if you offer an RSS feed of your news it pops right into their RSS reader.
If the headline catches their attention, chances are they'll click through and read the article.
HOW DO PEOPLE READ RSS?
Reading feeds is similar to using a radio. The station sends out programs and you need a radio set to pick up their shows. With RSS you send out your content in an RSS feed and subscribers use a newsreader to read it.
RSS has become so mainstream that all the browsers now read RSS.
The personalized pages of search engines have a reader built right in. You can read RSS feeds with an iGoogle page or a MyYahoo page. Some people prefer to use a separate RSS reader.
There are Web-based readers like Bloglines. There are also downloadable newsreaders you can install on your desktop. Some, like Pluck, are free. Others, like NewsGator, have a cost attached.
Newsreaders offer a variety of special features, including combining several related feeds into a single view, hiding items that the viewer has already seen, and categorizing feeds and items.
Once you set up your reader with your preferences, it will collect the feeds you're interested in every time there is an update.
RSS is a better choice. The customer has complete control and no email addresses are collected.
I would say RSS feed wins hands down! No problems and no way to subvert it.
Tom Ford
Will some one from the
BOA or a citizen present this to BOA Tuesday?
9:29 AM blogger: That very thing is in the works for the BOA meeting. Don't look for the Aldermen to bring It up (unless it's Duchild, Schlink, Miguel, or Wallach though.)
Tom Ford
Is Schlink planning to run again in April? He hasn't taken out papers yet to do so.
A very good presentation on RSS feed was given by Mr. Steve Nieder, and the Karen Rainey idea was tabled Tuesday night.
Tom Ford
If Schlink plans to run again, we can hope he will be able to spare the time and effort the task involves. This includes responding to his constituancy.
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