A lesson in monitoring and discovering news in Optimal Access

This is my 5th post in a series of posts examining our Optimal Access features against Robin Good’s criteria for the ideal content curation tool.  Here, Robin has defined a set of features for Content Monitoring, news discovery and filtering when considering a curation tool.  Let’s take a look at the set of questions and our response.

Content Monitoring – News Discovery

• Can you create “persistent searches”? Answer: Yes you can create one or more groups and subscribe to multiple alert sites.
• Can you designate what sources to tap? Answer: Yes, you can designate tens of sources and view each in its own window
• Can you subscribe and monitor any RSS feed? Answer: Yes, you can subscribe to any RSS feed with a simple drag and drop
• Is it possible to import an OPML file? Answer: Not yet, but we plan to offer this feature soon.
• Can the tool suggest relevant content based on your past activity? Answer: Our tool let’s you easily integrate any web based solution that offers this function
• Can the tool suggest relevant content based on your network of contacts? Answer: Our tool let’s you easily integrate any web based solution as part of your curated set of tools

Filtering

• Can you filter incoming content by keywords / hashtags / users?
• By popularity / relevance?
• By date?
• By language?
• By type of content?
• By type of source?
• By popularity (views, shares, etc.)?
  Answer: The strength of our solution is integrating any web based solution as part of your work flow.  So the answer is yes