Staying ahead on your content driven site

How far ahead do you keep your offline files for a site with daily updates?

[lovehealthsuccess]

Question #1: Are there any general rules for how many "days's worth" of content you should have created and stored ahead of time to be able to "keep up" with a site you host on which you post daily content updates?

Question #2: What are some good sources for content that can be syndicated so that the daily updates for those portions feed directly onto your site (but are branded with your site info)?

I'm interested in finding sources for two categories of syndicated content...first is the "little stuff"...daily horoscopes, joke of the day, motivational or topic driven quotes, etc. The second category is a bit more "high end"...industry related "tip of the day", industry related article of the day, featured industry personality profile of the day, etc.

Thank you for your help!

[Heartlander]

Uhhh...don't you mean "widget horoscopes", "widgets of the day..."? ; )

[linear]

Google alerts are excellent. I have two keyphrases set up, and so my gmail inbox gets two daily digests of all the news and press releases that the keyphrases apply to. I apply my own editorial sensibility (maybe one in ten of the press releases makes it to my site, and then with added commentary), but these are reliable sources of high-grade content. Especially at trade show time when press releases are coming too fast to keep up with. You know how the widget industry can get.

[shigamoto]

I have my content prepared about 1-2 days prior to it gets published. However sometimes I just write something and put it up directly, if I feel like it.

But to add a bit seriousity to what I'm doing with the site I've just recently started an article book. The book contains article ideas and reviews lists of widgets and when they should appear on the site.

As I've understood it that's the way many magazines operate so.

[Gargen]

i try to add something once a week minimum but generaly i aim for 3 or 4, plus my members send me stuff to put up so yea, but yea just find out whats going on a nd write about it for your users