Research Sources
Plan where to gather signals for content ideas, competitor moves, and industry trends before you commit topics or positioning.
Overview
research-sources is an agent skill most often used in Idea (also Grow/content, Idea/competitors) that selects and organizes marketing information sources for ideation, competitor monitoring, and industry tracking.
Install
npx skills add https://github.com/kostja94/marketing-skills --skill research-sourcesWhat is this skill?
- Three use-case lanes: content ideation, competitor monitoring, industry tracking
- Source categories table: news, blogs, newsletters with format and cadence guidance
- Initial assessment flow on first use; direct output on repeat invocations
- Pairs with keyword-research when the user needs search terms instead of feed strategy
- Version 1.1.1 marketing-strategies skill from kostja94/marketing-skills
- 3 structured use cases in SKILL.md table (content ideation, competitor monitoring, industry tracking)
Adoption & trust: 744 installs on skills.sh; 586 GitHub stars; 3/3 security scanners passed (skills.sh audits).
What problem does it solve?
You are drowning in random tabs and feeds without a prioritized set of sources for content ideas or competitive intelligence.
Who is it for?
Solo founders setting up the first serious research routine for blog, newsletter, or social content and light competitive intelligence.
Skip if: Pure search-volume or SERP keyword workflows—use keyword-research—and teams that already maintain a documented source ops playbook with no gaps.
When should I use this skill?
When the user wants to find information sources for content ideation, competitor monitoring, or industry tracking, or mentions research sources, information sources, content ideation, industry monitoring, competitor moni
What do I get? / Deliverables
You get categorized source recommendations aligned to content ideation, competitor monitoring, or industry tracking goals you can run on a schedule.
- Source category plan with formats and use cases
- Prioritized feed or publication list
- Monitoring vs ideation cadence recommendations
Recommended Skills
Journey fit
Spans multiple journey phases - primary shelf plus alternate fits below.
Research sources are chosen earliest when exploring markets and remain useful whenever you refresh intelligence. Idea-phase research subphase is the canonical shelf for structuring information sources before ideation and monitoring routines.
Where it fits
Pick news and newsletter sources before choosing a niche to build in.
Define blogs and review sites to monitor rival positioning and pricing.
Refresh topic ideation feeds ahead of a quarterly blog calendar.
Gather industry signals to sanity-check positioning before a prototype launch.
How it compares
Source-and-cadence strategy for feeds and publications—not a keyword volume tool or automated scraper.
Common Questions / FAQ
Who is research-sources for?
Indie builders and one-person marketing leads who need a clear map of news, blogs, and newsletters for ideation and monitoring.
When should I use research-sources?
When you mention research sources, information sources, content ideation, industry monitoring, competitor monitoring, market intelligence, content research, or topic research—at idea stage, before content sprints, or when refreshing a watch list.
Is research-sources safe to install?
Use Prism’s Security Audits panel on this page and inspect kostja94/marketing-skills; the skill advises reading external sources but does not define install scripts in the provided excerpt.
SKILL.md
READMESKILL.md - Research Sources
# Strategies: Research Sources Guides selecting and organizing information sources for marketing research: content ideation, competitor monitoring, and industry tracking. Use this skill when planning where to gather signals for content, competitive intelligence, or market trends. **When invoking**: On **first use**, if helpful, open with 1–2 sentences on what this skill covers and why it matters, then provide the main output. On **subsequent use** or when the user asks to skip, go directly to the main output. ## Use Cases | Use case | Purpose | |----------|---------| | **Content ideation** | Topic ideas, trends, gaps for blog, newsletter, social | | **Competitor monitoring** | Product updates, positioning, pricing, reviews | | **Industry tracking** | Market shifts, funding, layoffs, regulatory changes | ## Source Categories | Category | Format | Use | |----------|--------|-----| | **News** | Real-time, daily | Breaking news, announcements | | **Blogs** | Company, analyst | Deep dives, product updates | | **Newsletters** | Curated, weekly/daily | Trends, summaries; low effort | | **Events** | Conferences, webinars | Industry pulse, networking | | **Data** | Layoffs, market cap, funding | Quantitative signals | | **Community** | Forums, Q&A | Real questions, pain points | | **Archives** | Wayback, Internet Archive | Historical content, competitor changes | **Selection criteria**: Authority, freshness, coverage, language/locale. Prefer 10–15 high-quality sources over 50+ low-signal ones. ## Example Sources (Generic) | Category | Examples | |----------|----------| | **News** | TechCrunch, VentureBeat, MIT Technology Review | | **Blogs** | Google AI Blog, OpenAI Blog, company blogs | | **Newsletters** | TLDR AI, Ben's Bites, The Batch (DeepLearning.AI) | | **Data** | Layoffs.fyi, Crunchbase, Companies Market Cap | | **Archives** | Internet Archive, Wayback Machine | | **Community** | Reddit, Quora, Stack Overflow; regional (e.g. Qiita for Japan) | **Note**: Add locale-specific sources via **localization-strategy**; avoid long URL lists. ## By Use Case | Use case | Source types | |----------|--------------| | **Content ideation** | News, blogs, newsletters, community (Reddit, Quora, Stack Overflow) | | **Competitor monitoring** | Competitor blogs, review sites, social, funding databases | | **Industry tracking** | News, newsletters, events, layoff/funding data | **Avoid**: Long URL lists that go stale. Use category framework + a few examples; update periodically. ## Integration with Skills | Skill | How research sources feed in | |-------|------------------------------| | **keyword-research** | Newsletters, community for long-tail and question keywords | | **competitor-research** | Competitor blogs, review platforms, funding data | | **content-marketing** | News, blogs for topic ideas; events for timely content | | **content-strategy** | Industry trends for pillar/cluster planning | ## Output Format - **Use case** (ideation, competitor, industry) - **Category** selection (news, blogs, newsletters, etc.) - **Source** shortlist (5–15; name + purpose) - **Cadence** (daily scan, weekly digest, event calendar) ## Related Skills - **keyword-research**: Keyword discovery; research sources inform topics - **competitor-research**: Competitor analysis; sources for monitoring - **content-marketing**: Content planning; sources for ideation - **content-strategy**: Topic clusters; industry signals for pillars