Keeping Track of the News: Alerts, Page watching and RSS feeds
One of the ways you can cut down on your searching time is to put the internet to work for you. This way, you can have the news come to you, rather than spending all your time going from website to website in search of it.
Alerts
Some search engine/news sites offer subscriptions to "alerts", which inform you by email when an item matching your interests pops up. I use alerts from both Yahoo! and Google. You tell them what keywords to look for (I use "elijah wood", both with and without quotes. One gets you that exact wording, the other gets you the words in any order. I've used elijah woods, too, but I've never gotten much extra from it), how often you want to receive the alerts (once a day? As it happens?), and in Google's case, what sources to use (just the news, the news and the web, or just the web, I believe).
Here are the links to get set up:
Yahoo Alerts
Google Alerts
Page watching
Watch That Page has been an invaluable resource for me. I've used it for both fandom and non-fandom stuff. It's the best way I know of to keep an eye on changes on a webpage without constantly having to personally go check on it. You can enter the URL's for any pages you want to: fan sites, blogs, image sites, film sites, convention sites, etc, etc. And you can choose how often you want to be alerted (by email) to the changes. IT'S AWESOME. There may be other page-watching sites out there, but I've been using this one for over two years, and I've never felt the need to investigate elsewhere.
RSS feeds
I am not well versed in RSS feeds, but there are some that I use that I can pass along. An RSS is a type of web feed, which is a data format used for serving users frequently updated content. Content distributors syndicate a web feed, thereby allowing users to subscribe to it. - Wikipedia
In other words, you sign up for it, and they send the content to you -- you can have them delivered right onto your LJ friends page. There are some feeds already available to you, but if you find a site with an RSS feed that you're not sure is already syndicated to LJ, you can find out by going here and entering the URL. If nothing comes up, you can set it up yourself (I think I started three or four of the following, myself).
Here is a list of fandom-related feeds that I use:
elwood_news - I started this one about 18 months ago. It feeds off of NewsTrove, using "elijah wood" as the keywords. It occasionally goes wonky, but I've gotten some good stuff this way. (I also started elwoodnews at one point when the first one wasn't behaving, but it has since died altogether, while elwood_news mysteriously went away for awhile and then came back.) Sometimes the "news" it comes up with is old, but even that can turn up good stuff!
elijahduoblog - Elijah's Centrino MySpace blog brought right into your LJ. Not necessary if you've subscribed to the blog itself, but if you don't have a MySpace account, it's pretty nifty.
elijahfan_com - Feed for Elijahfan.com, which hasn't been updating lately. I keep it around anyway, just in case. I've never set up a feed for A&F (I have it on WatchThatPage instead), but I'm sure it could be done.
aintitcoolfeed - Useful for much more than just Elijah news: Ain't It Cool News, home of Harry Knowles (to whom we just might owe a whole lot). ;-)
monsterscritics - Ditto the above (except for the part about Harry, of course): Monsters and Critics Movie News.
theonering_net - I laugh, because I usually have any news about Elijah days before they get it, but it's still useful for other LOTR fandom news.
Alerts
Some search engine/news sites offer subscriptions to "alerts", which inform you by email when an item matching your interests pops up. I use alerts from both Yahoo! and Google. You tell them what keywords to look for (I use "elijah wood", both with and without quotes. One gets you that exact wording, the other gets you the words in any order. I've used elijah woods, too, but I've never gotten much extra from it), how often you want to receive the alerts (once a day? As it happens?), and in Google's case, what sources to use (just the news, the news and the web, or just the web, I believe).
Here are the links to get set up:
Yahoo Alerts
Google Alerts
Page watching
Watch That Page has been an invaluable resource for me. I've used it for both fandom and non-fandom stuff. It's the best way I know of to keep an eye on changes on a webpage without constantly having to personally go check on it. You can enter the URL's for any pages you want to: fan sites, blogs, image sites, film sites, convention sites, etc, etc. And you can choose how often you want to be alerted (by email) to the changes. IT'S AWESOME. There may be other page-watching sites out there, but I've been using this one for over two years, and I've never felt the need to investigate elsewhere.
RSS feeds
I am not well versed in RSS feeds, but there are some that I use that I can pass along. An RSS is a type of web feed, which is a data format used for serving users frequently updated content. Content distributors syndicate a web feed, thereby allowing users to subscribe to it. - Wikipedia
In other words, you sign up for it, and they send the content to you -- you can have them delivered right onto your LJ friends page. There are some feeds already available to you, but if you find a site with an RSS feed that you're not sure is already syndicated to LJ, you can find out by going here and entering the URL. If nothing comes up, you can set it up yourself (I think I started three or four of the following, myself).
Here is a list of fandom-related feeds that I use:
elwood_news - I started this one about 18 months ago. It feeds off of NewsTrove, using "elijah wood" as the keywords. It occasionally goes wonky, but I've gotten some good stuff this way. (I also started elwoodnews at one point when the first one wasn't behaving, but it has since died altogether, while elwood_news mysteriously went away for awhile and then came back.) Sometimes the "news" it comes up with is old, but even that can turn up good stuff!
elijahduoblog - Elijah's Centrino MySpace blog brought right into your LJ. Not necessary if you've subscribed to the blog itself, but if you don't have a MySpace account, it's pretty nifty.
elijahfan_com - Feed for Elijahfan.com, which hasn't been updating lately. I keep it around anyway, just in case. I've never set up a feed for A&F (I have it on WatchThatPage instead), but I'm sure it could be done.
aintitcoolfeed - Useful for much more than just Elijah news: Ain't It Cool News, home of Harry Knowles (to whom we just might owe a whole lot). ;-)
monsterscritics - Ditto the above (except for the part about Harry, of course): Monsters and Critics Movie News.
theonering_net - I laugh, because I usually have any news about Elijah days before they get it, but it's still useful for other LOTR fandom news.