Reiki Music. Video Marketing

Free download Google Subscribed link Brain2TSV feed utility

We’ve spoken about what the Subscribed Links from Google’s Integrated Search team are, elsewhere.

It’s not as exciting as some IM people would have you believe, as the searchers need to have opted in to you. Plus you WILL be competing with everyone else using that TRIGGER Phrase that they are also subscribed to.

The main reason I have entertained this is because of what Integrated Search could become in the future. And we know that Google like re-inventing the goal posts

The XML version of Subscribed Links is very powerful – allowing incorporation of real-time dynamic data feeds, as well as Google Gadgets (widgets). It’s a duff way of bringing customised content to your clients (they should be talking to you directly (i.e. RSS), not random searching). The XML side can get quote complicated and I don’t think it warrants the time for these results, which could be much better spent elsewhere.

There is a way to convert a normal RSS feed, and I don’t know why Google decided to require a modified header, I really don’t. But if you think about it, using your regular RSS feed is a wasted opportunity. People looking in Search are not wanting to read your RSS “PR and site tweaking” feed. They want SEARCH RELATED style info. They have an issue and are searching for it They don’t want to know an extract from your “general (RSS) news. AFAIK the triggers do not hone on t what path of the RSS they display. That is where the XML version would come in, IF it was worth it.

So bearing that in mind, and how unattractive the static links that the Google wizard provides, I think we have a best case scenario. An RSS style feed, which you can OPTIMISE for “SEARCH THINKING” and which is dynamic, simply by FTPing the new version file. Yes it could be even slicker if automated and that is where we would LIKE to go next with TSV, if there is sufficient interest. So do please drop us a line so we know.

TSV is a very simple utility in its ALPHA stage, and if we get no interest or feedback in it, we may be forced to just drop it as it is. There is zero money in it. But we have some great ideas for integrating this in the marketing hub-bub so I hope somebody somewhere remembers to tell us they like it. We all need encouragement right…

Mainly I built it because I needed it. I don’t have an RSS feed to convert on all my sites and my blogs don’t do the custom headers that Google requires. XML is too much time for the end result. And static data sucks. So the TSV file was the obvious candidate, which is probably why Google decided to add it as the fourth option. It’s very much in their natural Froogle and Base CSV feed thinking.

You can add as many items to your story as you want (each with its own URL and a keyword trigger) and then just save the TSV file out to FTP up. As Google spiders your site, it will update its impression of the TSV file too. There will be more info on the newsletter as we think of it and in the utility help file too.

It’s PC only at the moment. If I get 20 requests, I will bother to turn on my Mac (G3 but OS X) doorstop to convert it over.

WARNING it looks ugly… (unless some kind soul wants to skin it for me 640 x 480)