The whole idea behind my structuring Nation Times as I have has everything to do with maintaining a site that I don't actually have to maintain, y'know by hand. So I figured out how to automate its updates (for the most part). There was only one set of info that I couldn't access automatically, i.e keyword-based search results from NYTimes.com. So instead I setup NYTimes.com keyword-based email alerts. When I received those I'd post to del.icio.us and I setup that feed to update Nation Times with whatever news items I bookmarked. But I felt that that process still defeated my real purpose.
Then by chance two days ago I realized that I hadn't been looking for that info in the right spot. It turns out that NYTimes.com offers a Times Topic right along the lines of my keywords, complete with a feed URL and everything. So I got all excited thinking my last problem in life was solved, but then I noticed that the feed was displaying last week's news. So I got heated and sent in a detailed complaint (as all good consumers do) and to my pleasant surprise it looks like they fixed the thing at some time yesterday because I just checked it this morning and it's all up to date! So now Nation Times can get NYTimes.com feeds automatically and be a little better for it.
Of course I'll still keep the bookmark method intact, but that's intended for deliberate editor's picks, not some kind of pseudo-feed.
Labels: del.icio.us, nytimes.com, rss
