A few months back, I was asked if there was a way that the information shared by the Twitter users of our user group could be shared with the non-Twitter users. Basically a way to bring them the a sample of what was on Twitter to help people stay abreast of the things going on in the community.
The easiest way that I saw to do this was through the Paper.Li service. With this service, you can build out a daily “paper” that collects all of the URLs for the content sources for the paper.
Building A Paper
To begin building a paper, first browse to Paper.Li and select “create a paper”. This option is in the upper right-hand portion of the screen. That will open a screen that allows you to name the paper and select a number of content sources to begin building out the paper. You are limited to five sources, select the ones that you want. When that is completed, select Publish. That’s it, and the paper is complete. Of course, you may want to customize it some.
Content Sources
There are a number of content sources that can be included in a daily paper. These sources are:
- Single Twitter User
- Me & the People I Follow
- Twitter List
- Twitter #tag
- Keywords on Twitter
- Keywords on Facebook
Each of these sources should be self-explanatory. The one that really hit home for me was the option of using Twitter Lists. Prior to Paper.Li, I didn’t see a lot of value in using twitter lists. You could use them for Tweetdeck, but usually anyone that I followed was also in the list and there didn’t see to be a good reason to really use them.
With the other options, you have some good ways to find content not just based on what you would see on a daily basis, but also some other links and topics that are related but outside your visibility.
The PASSMN Daily Paper
When it comes to the PASSMN paper, there are four sources that drive content into it. These sources are:
- The twitter list @stratesql/PASSMNPaper: This is a list of local members of the PASSMN chapter. Along with that, it includes the PASS, SQL CAT, and SQL Server twitter accounts,
- The twitter tag #passmn: A hash tag some of us use from time to time to reference the user group
- The twitter user @PASSMN: The user groups twitter account.
- The twitter tag #sqlhelp: A hash tag from people seeking help with SQL Server. This was included to provide some additional interesting links to members
Through these, our members get a decent swath of links and information that I feel is helpful to them.
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