how to research without researching

Step 1: begin (if you aren't already) using a personalized homepage. Many exist: netvibes, iGoogle, pageflakes, etc.


Step 2: track PR by going to google and typing in something you would like to follow. For instance, you may want to follow "digital advertising" or "DVRs" or whatever. Once you click search, look up at the top of the page and click "News". This will filter the search by news articles. Then click RSS and copy and paste the url onto your personalized homepage. This will allow you to track PR on an ongoing basis, and the results automagically update, meaning new articles automatically appear.


Step 3: track consumer sentiment by mining blog comments (via Technorati), and twitter comments. Here's how: go to technorati.com (technorati is a blog search engine) and type in the word or phrase you would like to track, copy the RSS of the results and put it on your personalized homepage. It will also automagically update when new posts are written. Next go to tweetscan.com and type in the word or phrase you want to track, grab the RSS and put it on your personalized homepage.


Step 4: track the experts by finding a few trade publications that matter and grabbing their RSS and placing it on your personalized homepage.


Bonus: if you want to literally see what people are doing related to a topic, go to Tag Galaxy and type in a word or phrase to see all the pictures tagged with that word or phrase on flickr.com.


Keep in mind: This is a great approach, but it is not without its own bias. And, don't track too much or you won't be able to keep up.


Let me know if you have other tips and tricks.