Google Alerts is a great addition to Google’s plethora of free services – one that you shouldn’t overlook. This recently added powerful tool allows you to track conversations about any topic completely unattended. Just feed it the search term, refine the search type and let it go do its job.
In a timely fashion you’ll receive links with snippets of text related to your search terms. You choose to have results delivered via email or to your feed-reader. The icing on this cupcake is its ability to schedule the frequency of deliveries – “As it happens”, “once a day” or “once a week”.
- Google Alerts Configuration
Configuration of your Google Alerts is simple. At the Alerts site you complete 4 fields. Enter the “Search Terms” you’d like to track. The next two fields are drop-downs where you specify “Type” (where to search), and how often to deliver results. And lastly, where you’d like alerts delivered.
Types include News, Blogs, Web, Video, Groups, and Comprehensive (all of the above). The “where” can be a feed to your reader, by default this is Google Reader. Or if you prefer, enter your email address. You’ll have to experiment with this a little. It all
depends on what your tracking. If you’re tracking something popular like “government health care” you may want to direct that to your reader so as not to overwhelm your inbox. Whereas, tracking the last sighting of your favorite celebrity may be something different.
Think of the possibilities. Tracking sports, news updates on a high profile event, or just keeping up to date on an emerging technology.
One should also mention that there is no limit to the number of alerts you can set up. One of my favorites right now is tracking “Black Friday”. I read the returns in my reader along with my other feeds. I also just bought a Roku, so I’m tracking its mention everywhere for the upcoming new channels to be announced soon. This I do daily to my email inbox
I highly recommend you give Google Alerts a whirl. It’ll just take you a few minutes to set up and then you go about your business. And before too long you’ll be the goto person on the latest advances in silicon doping – cool dude!
Try it and share your take.
