Make your own Vanity or Ego feed

stalk yourselfOr how to really

What is an Ego or Vanity feed?

According to AllExperts – “a certain kind of web feed created by a search engine -- one showing all search results that match the subscriber's name, blog name, product name, etc. A feed of search results for links to the subscriber's URL would also be considered a vanity feed.”

A Really Simple Syndication (RSS) feed from sources around the web with a certain keyword or words.

What is it good for?

Engage in Conversation

Build Relationships

Track Success of output (posts, twitter etc)

Correcting Errors and Damage Control

Generally see what people are saying about us

Ok, backup what is RSS

RSS - Really Simple Syndication

is a family of web feed formats used to publish frequently updated works—such as blog entries, news headlines, audio, and video—in a standardized format

Is it easy?

As with all things it can be as easy or as hard as you want

You need an RSS reader like NetVibes or GoogleReader

Inputs and outputs are customisable

The 5 minute ego feedStep 1

Go to monitorThis and set up your keyword search

blogdigger blogmarks delicious findarticles google blogs google news google picasaweb identica magnolia

metacafe mybloglog opensearch plazoo technorati topix twitter wikio blogs wikio news youtube zimbio

The 5 minute ego feed

Step 2

Open results as an OPML file

The 5 minute ego feedStep 3

Copy and paste the file into a notepad document and save it as MyFeed.opml

The 5 minute ego feedStep 4

Create an account in a reader like NetVibes or GoogleReader

The 5 minute ego feedStep 5

Click on Add content

Click on add a feed and then under OPML select import

The 5 minute ego feedStep 6

Select Browse and select the MyFeed.opml document you made and then click on import

The 5 minute ego feedStep 7

NetVibes will then give you a pretty graphic interface with the overall results and the results per feed

Tweaking your feedResults can be quite varied and may need refining

You can manually add feeds from sites

You can edit or delete each feed on NetVibes

Tweaking your feedAdd in specific feeds like a twitter proximity feed or go more Boolean through their Advanced Search field

Upgrade

You can use various tools once you get the hang of it to get more results.

Yahoo pipes more complicated but much more flexible for advanced users

UpgradePage2Rss is a service that will create RSS feeds from pages without RSS facilities

Google Alerts can create RSS feeds on certain keywords

MSN Keyword Mutation Detection Tool can see what common misspellings occur for a phrase and help you add them to your search

External Google Keyword Tool helps you refine terms searched rather than your search terms

You can now go out and build those relaltionships

Or just stalk yourself…your choice really

More sources

How to Build a Reputation Monitoring Dashboard

Creating An Ego Feed With Yahoo Pipes

Page2RSS.com-Create RSS Feed For Any Web Page

Using Netvibes To Create A Current Awareness Service In Healthcare

Netvibes Tutorial