Time Hack: Monitor News Sites with iMacros Firefox Plugin

imacrosMy colleague Mario Starks recently pointed me to a rockin’ new Firefox plugin called iMacros, which lets you automatically run a whole host of repetitive tasks in your browser. My immediate thought was how this tool is perfect for monitoring competitors by loading multiple web sites in one shot.

By running a macro (similar to an Office macro or Photoshop action), you can designate a list of news sites, and run a macro to pop them all open. No more clicking your bookmarks one by one. Also, iMacros can also do all sorts of neat stuff, such as web scraping and automating file downloads.

And for more great ways to monitor your news competition, check out 5 Ways to Monitor Your News Competition Online.

Author: Danny Sanchez

Danny Sanchez is the Audience Development Manager at Tribune's Sun-Sentinel.com and OrlandoSentinel.com. Danny has been with Tribune since 2005 in a variety of editorial, digital and product development roles in Hartford, Orlando and Fort Lauderdale. He has also previously worked in the newsrooms of the Tampa Bay Times and The Miami Herald.

2 thoughts on “Time Hack: Monitor News Sites with iMacros Firefox Plugin”

  1. An alternative, for this purpose at least – you can bookmark all the sites, put the bookmarks all in one folder, and thenceforth just rightclick on the folder and select “open all in tabs”.

    But iMacros would likely be good for lots of other stuff, above and beyond this.

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