Why You Need a Web Based Dashboard
No. I am not talking about a car dashboard…
If you are an information junkie like me, you may find it hard to organize the streams of information that you find most important around the web.
Depending on your profession, you may spend a considerable amount of time online browsing information and topics of interest. This especially holds true for Bloggers and Social Media Marketers. According to Nielsen, Internet users spent 17hrs a week online.
So how do you uphold that new years resolution and start operating more efficiently in your day to day routine?
Simple – a web based dashboard. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the term, a web based dashboard allows you to syndicate RSS feeds, widgets and other content to a centralized location. Without my dashboard, I would have to open up at least 20 seperate websites a day to get my daily fill of information.
What should I you have your dashboard display?
It really depends on what content is useful for you. If you work in finance, you will want to see stock quotes for the day. Social Media Marketers will want to have the latest news breaking from Mashable.
Personally, I seperate my Dashboard of choice (iGoogle) into 4 columns:
- Task/Work Related (Calendar, Date/Time, New Email)
- World and Local News (World, Technology, Business)
- Social Media Feeds (Twitter, Facebook, Linked In)
- Inspirational Widgets (Word of the day, Things to Ponder, Quote of The Day etc.)
Here are some popular dashboards:
Most of these tools have comparable features. However, it is not so much the software that makes the dashboard useful, it is the quality of the information you monitor.
