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02. Organising your news watch

While social media is an important vector of news, search engines, led by Google, are just as important. One this is certain: it is impossible to follow everything that is published every second throughout the world. In order to avoid being overwhelmed, you must organise your news watch.

Using Google News and Google Alerts

Google News is pretty much the online news-stand. Starting your day by browsing through Google News is rarely a bad idea. It is extremely efficient for a news round-up; however, it must not be forgotten that this tool is managed by an algorithm and how that algorithm works is not fully known. To complete this news round-up, you can use curation sites such as CurationSoft. These sites also provide a round-up of the news but, this time, one that has been compiled via social media.

If your areas of interest are specific, you should create some Google Alerts. Set one or more keywords and the search engine will regularly send you emails compiling all new web pages containing the terms specified. This is a good way of making sure that you do not miss anything on a hot topic.

Creating lists on Twitter and organising them using TweetDeck

Social media platforms, especially Twitter, are an unstoppable torrent of content. If you want to have any control at all over the content that reaches you, it is vital that you organise a news watch by creating lists of thematic accounts (film actors, elected officials of a certain area, players of a football team, specialists in a field, etc.).

Once you have created your lists on Twitter, it is time to input them into another tool developed by the same company: TweetDeck. The main benefit of this tool is that it allows you to view multiple timelines (chronological lists of Tweets) on the same screen at the same time. While this is not ideal for use on a smartphone, the tool remains formidable when organised correctly on your computer.

Do not forget about online forums

Of course, social media platforms and search engines, which are now giants in the world of news, carry an incalculable amount of information per second. However, they are not the only place where you can find joy. Generally speaking, discussion forums, which were already fashionable in the early days of the internet, are still very active.

Do you want to know what young people talk about? Visit the forum on the website NeoGAF. Do you want to find discussion threads on a particular topic? You will find what you are looking for on Reddit. In recent years, the online discussion tool Discord has also see the emergence of thematic communities on all subjects. There is a gigantic field to explore.