xMap data

News

News brings stories into your flow from news feeds (RSS or Atom) or from a website’s news page: each story’s title, link, when it was published, the source and a short summary. Keep only the stories with your words, or tell xMap AI what you want, such as new store openings, and it keeps only those. A story that names a place gets a position, so it can go on a map or be checked against your own places.

In the editor: Stories from news feeds (RSS or Atom) or a website’s news page: title, link, when, the source and a short summary. Keep only those with your words, or let xMap AI keep only what you describe, such as new store openings. A place a story names gets a position, so it can go on a map.

Settings

Read

Pick one

Feeds: the RSS or Atom address a newspaper, a trade site or a company newsroom gives (often a link called RSS). A news page: the page itself; xMap reads its headlines and links, or its own feed when the page names one.

The address of each feed, such as a newspaper’s or a company’s newsroom RSS feed.

  • Feeds (RSS or Atom)
  • A news page

Addresses

Text, several lines

Up to 5 addresses, one a line. Each is read once a run. Only public pages: nothing behind a sign-in, and a site whose robots.txt asks robots not to read a page is left out, said in the step.

Up to 5 addresses, one a line. Each is read once a run.

Needed before the flow can run.

Only stories with these words

Text

A story is kept when its title or summary has any of the words. Leave it empty to keep every story.

Comma-separated; a story whose title or summary has any of them as a whole word is kept (accents do not matter), and matched_words says which. Empty keeps every story.

Keep only news about (xMap AI)

Text, several lines

In your own words, what the stories should be about. xMap AI reads each story’s title and summary and keeps the ones that fit; it also names the place a story is about.

Optional. Describe the news you want and xMap AI keeps only that.

Published

Pick one

Stories older than this are left out. Headlines read from a page often have no date: they are kept.

  • Last 24 hours
  • Last 3 days
  • Last 7 days
  • Last 30 days
  • Any time

Most stories

A number

The newest stories first, up to 100 a run.

Up to 100 a run, newest first.

Needed before the flow can run.

Find the places named

On or off

A story that names a city xMap knows, or a place xMap AI names, gets place, lat and lng. A story that names none keeps no position.

A story that names a city or place gets place, lat and lng; one that names none keeps no position.

What comes out

Each item that leaves the block carries these fields, to use in the blocks after it as {{field}}.

Each story, as an item

Newest first, after the words, the window and the AI filter.

  • title: The headline.
  • link: The story’s own address. Only new knows a story by it.
  • published: When it was published (empty for a page’s headlines without a date).
  • source: The feed’s or the site’s name.
  • summary: The feed’s short description, at most 300 characters. Never the whole article.
  • place, lat, lng: The place the story names, and its position.

How to use it

Retail

Rivals opening stores

A retail team in Madrid wants each morning’s news of rivals opening stores, with the ones that matter most first.

Before: Someone read three trade sites every morning and pasted links into a chat.

With the flow: The channel gets the openings, scored, before nine.

Real estate

Planning news on a map

A property team in Nairobi follows the city’s planning and construction news to spot areas about to change.

Stories that name a district land on the map next to the team’s listings.

Wholesale

Expansion announcements to call

A supplier in Sydney turns companies’ expansion announcements into a list to call.

Logistics

Port and strike news

An alert the same morning gives a day to re-route.

Public sector

What residents read about the city

A clear weekly view of what the city is in the news for.

Banking and payments

Merchants in the news

A merchant in the news, good or bad, is worth a call.

Hospitality

Events coming to town

Prices can move before the event sells out the city.

Good to know

  • 2 credits for each story kept, and 1 for each story xMap AI reads when you describe what to keep.
  • Only public pages are read, one request a source a run, with a short time limit; nothing behind a sign-in.
  • A site whose robots.txt asks robots not to read a page is left out, and the step says so.
  • Only the title, the link, when, the source and the feed’s short summary are kept, never the whole article. Open the link to read it.
  • Put Only new after it so each story comes once.
  • Places come from the cities xMap knows, or from the place xMap AI names when it reads the stories.

Works well with

  • Only new: Lets through only the items this flow has not found before, so a daily flow sends only what is new.
  • xMap LLM: Tell the AI what to do in plain words.
  • Place classifier: Assigns clean categories and merges duplicate places.
  • Show on a map: Shows the results as points on a map, with the area of interest.
  • Email: Sends one email per run with all the items, or one email per item.
  • Slack: Channel-based messaging platform
  • Apollo: The people to talk to at each company, and the company’s details, from your own Apollo account (apollo.io): decision makers by job title with their LinkedIn and work email; or the company’s size, industry, revenue and LinkedIn page; or a person from their email.

Templates that use it

Stories with it

Help articles

Industries that use it

Healthcare & pharma · Banking & lending · Education & training · Law & professional services · Media & publishing · Events & venues · Non-profits & humanitarian · Environment & climate · Manufacturing & industrial · Software & tech · Airports & aviation

Try it

Build a flow with News on the home page, no account needed, or book a call. Try it live