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NGO Tech Talk: Making the most of AlertNet RSS feeds
Written by: Bart Stidham
Reuters and AlertNet are not responsible for the content of this article or for any external internet sites. The views expressed are the author's alone.
AlertNet has an amazing and little know feature that allows users to create custom RSS feeds. RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication and it is a web-based standardized format for publishing information in real time. It is a "pull" technology because you have to subscribe to it and you need some piece of software to regularly go to the site publishing the information and ask for it. Most web browsers can do this but RSS feeds are becoming very pervasive and many Internet-capable devices now include this feature, including Internet-enabled televisions, radios and game consoles. For instance the Wii game console gets its news and weather information using this technology. In my job it is important to stay current on global news so it was logical that I would replace the long absent PointCast newsfeed that used to run as my screensaver (over 10 years ago) with the current technology equivalent. For those of you who don't remember, PointCast was the first software package released that went "viral" and reeked havoc on corporate networks. PointCast was not a virus but it was viewed as one by most corporate IT departments because it was free, users loved it and it gobbled up bandwidth at a time when corporate IT departments had just heard of the Internet. It really laid the groundwork for later software such as Skype and other social media systems that require local software to be installed. If you want to take advantage Alertnet's RSS feeds it is very easy. On a Macintosh the Apple screen saver has an RSS feed option. There are a number of screen savers that can be added to Windows and Linux computers that work in a similar fashion. There are even screen savers for many cell phones that can accept and display information from RSS feeds. Once you have a place to display the information go to the AlertNet home page and on the menu on the left-hand side you will see "Emails and alerts". Click that and at the bottom of that page you will see a button that allows you to create your very own customized RSS feed. To me this is the really brilliant feature of AlertNet as I can quickly and easily modify a feed or create a new one. Normally I prefer my news by subject since I am part of the headquarters operation of a large NGO operating in 30 countries. Trying to follow detailed news in that many countries gets a bit daunting. However, I also travel to support our programs in the field. This is why I love the ability to quickly and easily customize my AlertNet RSS feed. For instance, I am headed to Afghanistan shortly so I want to be up on all the latest news prior to travelling and while I am there. Changing my RSS feed is as simple as going to the AlertNet page and selecting "Afghanistan". Since I want to be able to receive this on my phone and laptop via limited bandwidth I checked the "Low Graphics" box at the bottom of the page. It's then just a simple matter of entering the new link wherever I want to read it. If copy and paste is not available on the device this can be a bit painful because it means typing in the entire URL manually but having the latest news "in my pocket" is worth the effort. RSS readers are available for all smartphone platforms including the BlackBerry, iPhone, Symbian, Windows Mobile and of course Android. Some are paid applications but most are free. If you're worried about impacting your battery life make sure you do not let them run in the background. This means that when you launch the application to read the latest AlertNet news there will be a slight delay. The RSS application will only ask for the information in the feed when it is running as the primary application on your smartphone so it will only have the "old" news from the last time you ran it until it retrieves the latest information. In most cases this is less than a minute but of course it depends on where you are and how much bandwidth you have. Feel free to comment on this if you have a favorite RSS reader or an interesting way to make use of the AlertNet RSS feed service.
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Bart Stidham has worked as a chief technology officer, chief information officer and enterprise architect for over 15 years. He has been an external consultant to numerous large international NGOs as well as some of the largest companies on Earth. During the dot.com boom he was CTO of one of the five largest multi-national communications corporations on Earth. After that he was a senior executive at Accenture in the Enterprise Architecture practice. He now lives in Washington DC when he is not travelling.
