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Making “David Pogue Direct”

So a reader writes to NYT technology columnist David Pogue, saying he wishes there was one button he could push to receive all Pogue’s writings and videos. The reader even suggests a name for this: “David Pogue Direct.” It’s a great idea.

But David Pogue says there’s no “one-click Pogue subscription” and that to catch all his content online, one has to subscribe to multiple sources in multiple formats.

I think that stinks. I think there should be a one-click way to keep up with Pogue. After all, he’s one of my favorite writers on technology.

So…let’s see if we CAN make a one-click Pogue Subscription.

We already have an RSS feed for Pogue’s Posts (his NYT blog):
http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/feed/

To get his columns, Pogue suggests an email subscription (bleah!).

Here’s the feed for his NYT columns:
http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/p/david_pogue/index.html?rss=1

Pogue only has one solution to get his videos syndicated, and one to get them sans syndication:

* VIDEOS: Subscribe through iTunes . This is better than finding them on the Web, because (a) you’ll never miss one, (b) no ads, (c) higher quality, (d) iPhone/iPod compatibility, and (e) they’re downloaded files, so you can play them at will.

[UPDATE: If you're not into iTunes, you can also get the videos on nytimes.com, from my video channel here. Unfortunately, I don't see a way to subscribe to it automatically.]

We can do better than that.

Want to subscribe to Pogue videos without having to use iTunes?

Subscribe to one of these feeds in your favorite aggregator:
http://nytsynvideo.com/itunes/5 (.mp4, no advertisements)
OR
http://video.nytimes.com/video/playlist/technology/david-pogue/1194811622273/index.html?rss=1 (Links to each new Flash video on the NYT Web site, has advertisements)

Pogue gives his Twitter user ID, but that isn’t suitable for a one-click “Pogue Direct” solution, so we’ll grab the RSS feed for his Twitter stream:
http://twitter.com/statuses/user_timeline/9534522.rss

So, let’s use Yahoo! Pipes to slap ‘em all together. While in Pipes, we’ll even add a word to the front of each title so you know which feed the item is coming from.

Want a single RSS feed? Here you go:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/DavidPogueDirect

Prefer to get that via email? (I don’t recommend it. Who wants an email every time David Pogue Tweets?)

Preview of David Pogue Direct:

I did this for fun and to see if I could. If Mr. Pogue objects, I will of course disable all of this. I’m a fan, after all.

Still, wouldn’t it be smart of the NYT to offer a convenient, one-click channel for David Pogue’s content? Slapping this together took me 20 minutes. Imagine how cool it could be if the NYT did it.

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