The eOK .network

Last week Yahoo launched its codeless-programmable feed aggregator called Yahoo Pipes where anyone can take RSS feeds from a source, put it through custom operators (algorithms) and it churns out an entire web application customised for your very needs.

This product follows from other similar Web 2.0 build-your-own (BYO) codeless web apps such as Salesforce.com, Coghead, and DabbleDB.

So, me being me (read lazy), can never understand why we in PR (and probably elsewhere too) still do things the painfully manual way. So here’s a list of the possible BYO web apps we PR people can start on.

Online Media Monitor: Sorry to burst your bubble, but searching Google News and Factiva is a manual process. With Yahoo Pipes, all this can be automated from multiple news sources such as Google News, NewsVine, Yahoo News, bloglines, digg, Reddit, or any other local online news source you fancy. What more you can add your client’s search terms and other logic like sorting of new to enhance the accuracy. Here’s an example of a Pipe for aggregating news, but it leaves an open user input search interface.

Event Registration: This is a common one. I’ve seen everything from manual RSVP by email to the complex custom registration system that tracks emails and issues self-generating barcodes. I’ve got no way to compete with the self-generating barcode guys, but building a simple registration form for sure beats compiling RSVPs from email. Enter Coghead. You can build just about anything with Coghead actually, but its especially good for apps which use a form interface and thus its perfect for collecting data for event registration. You can put in all your usual options such as choice of food, person they wish to speak with, etc, and it’ll all be seamlessly compiled in a lovely database.

Media Directory: My previous discussions with Text 100 talked about using a Wiki to create a publicly available media directory, but as we wait for the industry to embrace such openness, we can begin with our very own. There are many enterprise Wikis/knowledge management systems out there including SocialText and SystemOne, but I’ve picked JotSpot because its the easiest to use and you can create custom directories (among other things) that everyone in the company can edit. Unfortunately you can’t sign up for an account now because the Google acquisition is migrating the system. But current users can still muck around.

Media Audit/Survey: Sometimes surveys need to be done with the media, internal communications, public perceptions etc. One quick way is to use online survey services such as Insiteful Surveys, but its actually more fun and more powerful to BYO Coghead app. It’s not just a simple survey anymore, but more like a CRM application. Really!

Client Project Management: This is an interesting one because there are a multitude of solutions. The popular Web 2.0 company, 37signals, has an amazing project management tool called Basecamp. You can use it to track milestones, deadlines, etc. Extremely useful for big projects where you need to involve and collaborate with multiple third-party vendors. But if you prefer a calendar interface to an advanced to-do list, you might want to try Dabble DB an extremely flexible database web app that morph into anything from a spreadsheet to a calendar.

Pet Robot: This is the most important one. It can be used to fetch cookies from the pantry and saving PR practitioners about 5 minutes plus you remove the temptation to standing around the water cooler and talk about non-work stuff! I really do have a solution here: Lego Mindstorms. Like the rest of the other apps, the programming logic behind this lego robot requires no knowledge of code and syntax, just drag-and-drop commands. Simple. Urm… does anyone else think they ripped the design off “Johnny 5″?