Organization Tip: Create a Local Events Folder in Google Reader

One of the latest buzz words these days is "staycation" which is a vacation that does not require leaving your own city or region. Staycations are becoming popular due to our current economic hardships and increased family budget constraints. Last year my wife and I took an extended weekend off and stayed at the Silver Legacy in Reno. We gambled, watched a few shows, tried out some of the great restaurants and had a great time.

Google Reader (Reader) is an online free tool that allows you to subscribe to RSS feeds that have become prominent on the web. The benefit is that the news comes to you - as long as you subscribe to the feeds that interest you. Below I will describe how you can use Reader to monitor local event calendars for shows, concerts and more.

Being from the Reno/Tahoe area we have a rich events calendar and a number of events pop up from time to time that I miss out on. Today I decided to remedy the situation and create a Reader folder called "local events". I scoured the web for local events feeds. Places I searched include some of our local casinos, our local news paper web sites and searches on google for things like "local events reno rss".

I've made my reno/tahoe local events folder public and it can be viewed and subscribed to here:

Reno/Tahoe Local Events

Happy staycationing!

2 comments :: Organization Tip: Create a Local Events Folder in Google Reader

  1. With so many posts coming through the feed, it's tough get the chronological order of them. This would be awesome if it was a calendar (maybe google calendar) that you could browse to and get an at-a-glance view of what was today/this week/month.

    Also, Is there a way to filter your feed? Say I want to exclude ones that have something in the title...

    Interesting idea though...

  2. Hi Jason,

    I'm using a GreaseMonkey extension for firefox. There is a user script called "Google Reader Filter". It will add additional options to Google Reader to allow for filtering and highlighting of posts based on content. It also includes a deduping feature. I know you use Google chrome and I'm unsure if GreaseMonkey is compatible with that yet.

    Take care,

    Gabe