Wednesday, December 28, 2011

How I Made My Own Private Michgan State University News Feed

So I stumbled across a guy explaning how to make a hyper-local news network and figured I would try it with Michigan State University since my daughter goes there.  That way I could keep up with what was going on in Sports, Arts, etc. at MSU.  In the space of a few minutes, I had created my own personalized MSU news and information network. 

Naturally, I'm going to share the love.  Here is how you can make your own private news/information network on whatever it is you happen to be interested in, like football, a specific college, the place you live, any subject you happen to be interested in.

1.  What you will need:
    a.  An iPad or an iPhone or an iPod Touch, or maybe even a Mac, I haven't checked yet. - anything that can run the application "Flipboard."
   b.  The application "Flipboard," you can download it from the App store (very cool app!)
   c.   A Twitter account

2.  What to do
    a.  First you need to install "Flipboard" on your iOS device and then launch it. 
    b.  Connect "Flipboard" with your twitter account by giving it your twitter name and password
    c.  Next we are going to create a List in twitter.  I will explain how I created my twitter list for MSU.
        1. Sign into Twitter and on the home page find the dropdown menu "Lists."
        2. Click on "Lists" and then select "Create a List."
        3.  Fill out the name of your List (for me it was Michigan State University)
        4.  Put in a description of what the List is about: "All Things MSU."
        5.  Select the "Make List Public" box and then click on "Save List."
        6.  Now you go to a page where you find twitter feeds to put into your list.  I just searched for "Michigan State University" and got more than enough hits.
        7.  As you find Twitter feeds to include in your list; don't click on Follow or you'll clog up your Twitter feed.  Click on the outline of the head next to Follow and select "Add to List."
        8.  Keep adding as many Twitter feeds as you want until you have a sufficient amount.
    d.  Now we are going to head over to "Flipboard" and create our newspaper.
        1.  Open the App "Flipboard."
        2.  Find the first blank space (in the first page or two) that as a grey "more" in it.  Click on this.
        3.  Click on Accounts; then Twitter; and then Your Lists.  After a minute your new list should come up.  Click on your List and then give Flipboard a minute or two to populate your new information page.  When it is finished, if you like what you see, you just click on the "Add" button in the upper left hand corner and now you have your own personalized information feed.
     e.  I'm attaching a screenshot of my new MSU information magazine (with many pages) to give you an idea of what it ends up to be.


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