Semester 3 Week 3: RSS and Twitter

In the second weekm we focused on RSS, trend trackers and tools you can follow the medical literature easily with.

• Before, we had to surf on the web. Now we let the content and information come to us automatically.
• Definition and story of RSS.
• Advantages of RSS (easy to use, free, comprehensive).
• A little bit of statistics (medical bloggers tend to read RSS).
• RSS icons.

• How to read RSS (browser; Bloglines; desktop-based readers).
• An example, a real tutorial about how to follow the latest articles published on NEJM. Step by step.
• Best friend of docs? Of course, Pubmed. How to follow Pubmed updates easily.
• What to do when a site doesn’t have RSS feed.
• Biowizard.com and other 3rd party Pubmed tools

• Suggestions about how to use Google Alerts efficiently.
• Video: RSS in Plain English

Take-home message:

Let the information come to you and follow your field of interest easily.

Second slideshow focused on microblogging:

• Definition of Twitter, post, reply, direct message, tweeple, twitterview, etc.
• Good examples in medicine
• How to search on Friendfeed
• How to search on Twitter: tweetscan.com

Take-home message:

Twitter is the fastest channel of communication these days, but only use it if you have a well designed strategy.