Top Bloggers Essential Research Tools, Part 4

By B.L. Ochman Here's how Shel Israel, co-author (with Robert Scoble) of Naked Conversations, publisher of It Seems to Me and Naked Conversations blog answers my question, how do you keep up with all the information coming at you from every direction?

I am not a big lover of search tools, but I really like Personal Bee which I've been beta testing for a short time. I'm also fond of tech memeorandum and have grown accustomed to my Technorati.

I blog using an old version of Pmachine. We also use a Typepad blog for some internal stuff.
We use Mediawiki for internal KM stuff. I've started using Flickr for photos. And most of my life is documented/organized using this

The only things I would add to your list are Wikipedia, which is surprisingly better than most online commercial references, and some of the marketing forums at Soflow, which give me ideas even though I only scan the topics and rarely participate in the discussions.

You certainly have more of a 'geek gene' than I do because you implement many more tools than I do! But, there are a couple of things I do each day that, although decidedly 'low tech', still need to be done to know what people are saying about this company and our industry in general.

Google Alerts, RSS feeds and Technorati are part of my daily life, too.

However, there is something else that I do every morning that is decidedly 'low tech', but very much a necessity to know what people are saying about the industry as a whole and our company specifically. I visit multiple message boards/forums where people are talking about cycling or motorcycling every day.

Sometimes it's in these forums where the hottest topics are being discussed in a rapid-fire way. I also visit the trade journals online each day. The publications each have an online component that is updated daily, but this isn't in a blog or forum structure and they don't have RSS.

Steve O'Keefe, Executive Director, of Patron St Productions and contributor to the International Association of Online Communicators blog

Like you, I'm using Firefox -- with a nifty little extension called "SessionSaver" that retains tabs when you quit Firefox and reopens them when you restart.

I'm also using:

NetNewsWire for RSS feeds, but I find myself clicking through to the blogs rather than reading anything but headlines in NNW because it doesn't format pretty.

Skype a lot more every week. It's VOIP and IM and not really in the category of these other news gatherers, but it keeps me in contact with people who read more blogs than I do and point me to stuff I should see. Europeans are much keener on Skype than Americans and I find Skype essential for doing business in Europe.

I'm also still using Eudora for e-mail because the filters are just awesome for sorting incoming email accurately.

Related What's Next Blog posts:
How I Keep Up With It All: My Top Blog Research Tools
Guest Post: Graham Holliday, Journalist & Blogger, Shares His Top Blog Research Tools
Guest Post: Bob Cox, Media Bloggers Assoc President's Top Blog Research Tools
Top Bloggers Share Their Favorite Research Tools

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