When ClubBlogger received an email from a member, recently, about “Automatic Blog Content”, we viewed it with great scepticism.

And, to be honest, we’re still sceptical.   The whole point about a good blog is that it provides good, original, content.  It’s just not possible to automate that – or is it?

No!  But it is possible to supplement good, well written content with a feed of good ‘automatic’ content.  What is meant by this?  Well, it’s kind of like an auto-pilot on an airplane not replacing the pilot – but assisting him/her.

We thought it was worth taking a look.

One product (of many) which has been brought onto our radar is “CaRP”.  No, this isn’t a fishing post  CaRP takes two of the most powerful elements on the internet, RSS and HTML, and melds them together. Sounds cute? Well, it just may be.

We all need to get real, here. Content is king – and that’s what readers want. Readers do NOT want nonsense generated by a computer. They want good content generated and tailored by a good author. So it is and so shall it be. But do users also want to see good content generated from a good RSS feed? It really feels that way and tests of CaRP have shown that. Yes, we took out a few of the ClubBlogger dollars!

RSS is powerful. No doubt (see the link, above, to a previous ClubBlogger post). It’s hardly news to those experienced ClubBloggers. But only some of you will have used it this way.

We thought it was worth a shot and will work further with it. With a ‘wet towel’ on the head to ensure you keep grounded and sensible (it’s easy to get carried away with this thing!) you may want to delve into the powerful world of RSS to HTML and try this. Or you may know a colleague or a friend who might.

There are several other tools worth looking at in this area. Scripts are reasonably readily available to buy and use.

Enjoy experimenting. But really, really, keep in mind that good content will drive this thing.

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Filed under: Blogging, Content, RSS | Tagged: Blogging, Content, RSS