The Challenge

Rambles and Riff Raff about all this and that

Aggregating – Part 1

Published by Esteban Glas on May 27th, 2008 | This post lacks all category except for: Betas, Blogs, Olympic Marketing, Web 2.0, Web Marketing

It is finally live so I can talk about it. Some time ago David asked how to aggregate 100+ feeds in a single site. He got some very interesting answers, most notably one pingback from Mark Cahill.

What is this program all about then? The boss explains it far better than I could possibly do. But to summarize: we’re gathering a bunch of “geeky athletes” (tip of the hat to Zach Bell for the term!) and trying to connect them with fans, the general audience and other athletes. They have a lot to say and we want to make sure their voices are heard.

How I solved the technical part of this project is part of part 2 of this two-part series.

So what will I be posting about here? The human side. The things I’m learning just by taking the quick looks I must take into this Athlete’s blogs.

Athletes are a race apart, particularly amateurs. This people fight every single day of their lives to get better at what they do. Many times they have to struggle against very adverse training conditions, constrained budgets and the fears we all have (but not everybody faces).

All of that for single moments of glory or defeat every four years.

The sheer degree of self-consciousness and perfectionism required at this level is something not everyone can deal with. Take David Oliver’s blog title: “David Oliver! Your Mission: 12.87″ if that ain’t a statement I don’t know what is.

Reading Drew Ginn’s thoughts on how to hold on efforts minute-by-minute are also quite inspiring:

During the last few days many times I have found myself using the idea of just hang on a minute just to see what else there is. Just to see if you can go a little further. A minute seems reasonable to consider. A minute is not never ending but rather a finite period to hang on for. The last bike ride I went on was a classic example where I had the feeling of tired and fatigue in my legs. To the point where I just kept thinking ‘Hang On A Minute’, a minute was fair. It felt ok to push on a little longer obviously to find that there was another still to come after that one. It was a long climb and each and every minute began with a simple task, HANG ON.

So, if people ask me what do I enjoy most about Olympic Web Marketing the answer is simple: learning from this athlete’s life lessons.

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