Leveraging the conversational web for keyword focused content

At this exact moment, there are a staggering number of conversations taking place on the web.  People are talking, man! And they're talking about STUFF! Real STUFF! Like Cars, and Toothpaste, and Shoes, and Credit Cards!! AMAZING, eh?

OK, so maybe it's not totally amazing, but what IS amazing is that you can leverage all these free conversations for content.

For the sake of this post, I hacked up a quick and dirty sample that scrapes summize.com to deliver keyword focused chunks of content for you to use however you see fit. This is programmed in Ruby, using the Mechanize Gem (my favorite gem for scraping).

Let's say we're promoting an offer for a credit check, or something of that nature. Naturally, we'll want some content that is focused around the keyphrase "credit check" 

require 'rubygems'
require 'mechanize'

agent = WWW::Mechanize.new
agent.user_agent_alias = "Windows Mozilla"

query = "credit check"
doc = agent.get("http://summize.com/search?q=#{query}")

messages = doc.search("div.msg")

for message in messages
message.search("a").remove
content = message.search("span")
puts content.inner_text
end

 

And the output from this little chunk of ruby coolness?

Having a crappy Saturn experience.  Salesperson won't check other dealers for cars.  Won't let me fax credit ap.  2 hrs to pick up the car?
I always lose the new activations to the credit check.
pending credit check.... im fucking moving!!!!!!!!!
Audio Visual: No credit check contract mobiles sony ericsson,nokia,samsung,motorola order online at..
After waiting 3 fucking weeks my $50 check from ACE credit group. Gave $10 to Teresa since I owe her and kept the rest.
My credit union's web site is back up. Sadly no rebate check. Didn't really expect it today based on my SSN.
I'm debating wether I should walk up to Court St. to drop off a check at the Credit Union....
I'll check out the Wings over Col. next week, new month, new credit card bill. ;) Shade on the Canal in Canal Win. has good wings
Boo.. just short of getting my rebate check today...I really wanted to stimulate the economy by lowering my credit card debt too...oh wait..
cash or check only.  they don't take credit or debit.  we found that one out the hard way.

 

Yup. Free content. 

This content shouldn't form the foundation of your sites text, but it is the perfect kind of stuff to put in a sidebar. This is good content to round out your existing pages in a relevant and unique way. I'd suggest putting this sort of content in a side bar, and making it look just like some kind of widget.

BTW, I should have mentioned: Summize has an API. http://summize.com/api