Buzz - A partial failure, but I did learn a few new tricks!

It all started well, I actually set up my Google Alerts and Netvibes pages within a few days of the challenge beginning. My problem though was the brands I had chosen to monitor. I started with The New Covent Garden Food Co. After all, I like soup. There were a few obvious competitors; Heinze, Holland and Barret, and other search terms; soup, organic food etc. I thought I would be laughing.

So I checked back a week later to find that my feed from the BBC had found nothing of any relevance. Lots of info on Covent Garden Market, but not much on the food company.

A bit of a problem. So I had a quick look at the blogs that I was tracking, and soup in June doesn't seem to be much of a hot topic either. I had a bit more of a hunt around and decided that there was enough time to change brands. So I set up a second set of Google Alerts and a new Netvibes page. This time for Carlsberg. There is always someone giving their two pence worth about the amount we like to drink or underage drinking.

But the same thing happened again.

The feed with the brand name in told me that they were thinking of buying Scottish and Newcastle, and they sponsor the Football Association of Ireland Cup, and it was a pulsating game.

I was bit miffed. Surely it wasn't the brands I had chosen. Neither of them are massive names, but the Danish can't bare to see Carlsberg leave so there must be someone writing about it.

There were two problems with the way that I had approached it. Firstly, I had focused on too few sources of information. The sources are partly limited to those you can get a live feed from. For example, there were far more articles on the Times Online about Carlsberg than the BBC. But they don't offer a feed. Netvibes brings a host of information sources into one place, but it also means that you rely on those that you can get feeds from. Those that don't, I ignored.


My second mistake was in the terms of search that I used. Basic brand names are a start. But really, if you are writing an article on salt levels in food or underage drinking, you are not that likely to mention all the guilty brands. If I had widen these to include things like healthy food, salt in food, obesity, binge drinking etc then I would certainly have had more joy. Especially with the blogs. Most that were turned up searching for Carlsberg were pics of people drinking it, or 'If Carlsberg did...' ideas.

Also, had I not left the final part of the challenge until now, I would have been able to write something on the information I eventually found. As it is I am let for the 11.55 from St Pancras to Nottingham.