| Tracking Web Information with Alert Services |
|
| Tuesday, 02 September 2008 | |
|
I often get questions from readers asking how to keep current or track certain topics. The answer often depends on what you’re trying to monitor and how you want the alerts. The two free notification services I use are Google Alerts and ZapTXT.
Information alert services aren’t new and have been around before the web although they were expensive and had names like “selected dissemination of information”. What has changed is the ease at which anyone can create alerts. They can be particularly helpful for people that want to track information without subscribing to or filtering RSS feeds. Google Alerts – Getting the Big PictureWhen it comes to doing a broad sweep for information, Google Alerts comes to mind. The free service is good for tracking keywords and phrases through their properties. These include:
The service allows you to define how often you receive the email alert with delivery options for a “once a day”, “as-it-happens” and “once a week. “  Click to enlarge The alert service is easy to set up and you’re not required to have a Google email account. The advantage of using a Gmail account is that you get a separate alerts page which makes management easier. Like with any search, you may have to tweak your email alerts to fit the circumstances. Although the form has a simple design, your alerts can be complex. To see specific search alert examples, I’d suggest reading the Digital Inspirations post on staying ahead of the curve. ZapTXT - Hybrid Notification ApproachAnother free alert service which I use for notifications is ZapTXT. Although the service has similarities with Google Alerts, there are differences such as setup and delivery options. One difference is that ZapTXT just searches against RSS feeds or OPML lists. The good news is that you don’t need to know the name of the RSS feed. Like Google, ZapTXT makes creating alerts easy. The task form is set up to handle the different query types which are called ZapTasks. The top part allows you to create a Quick ZapTask alert against a group of themed web sites. One popular theme is “Deal” sites for bargain and coupon hunters. In the screen snap below, I selected Living and then Life. A predefined list of sites appears that I can use to jump start my alert. Clicking “NEXT STEP” allows me to add my keywords and delivery options.  Click to enlarge After I’ve created an alert I can edit it and add more feeds so I’m not limited by the initial list. This panel also includes an advanced filter option link. The service also allows you to create a custom ZapTask. The process is similar except that you supply the website address. One nice feature is you can start by entering the URL like www.timeatlas.com. The service will try to find the RSS feed.  Click to enlarge A major difference is ZapTXT has something they call “presence detection”. If you create an alert and choose to receive notification via IM and you’re “offline” or “idle”, the service can forward the alert to either email or SMS. This is a nice feature if you’re tracking something that is time sensitive. The SMS alerts are also formatted differently to accommodate the shorter message. I should mention the SMS feature is limited to the US & Canada. Your phone carrier may charge you for the SMS. Another convenience is that you have more flexibility over the delivery of the alerts. For example, you may need to pause an alert for some reason such as a vacation. A similar feature exists if you want to turn off SMS messaging during certain times of the day. The one control they don’t offer is the ability to delete alerts. Paused or Inactive alerts show on your My ZapTasks page on an Inactive ZapTasks tab. My guess is deleting alerts is something that will be added in future releases. I suspect some of you may be creating alerts for work to monitor your competition, pending legislation or some event. In these situations, it’s nice to be able to share the results with co-workers or colleagues. After you create an alert, you have the ability to have the results go to multiple email addresses. Alternatively, you can create a RSS feed for the results. If you have your own site, the company also has a set of publisher tools that makes it easier for your readers to get content.
Pros and Cons of Alert ServicesAs promising as these services sound, they will not notify you of everything. And at times, you may get duplicate alerts. Both Google and ZapTXT are automated systems that rely on source data to determine if an alert should be generated. The problem is that source data may not include the full content. Some RSS feds, such as ours, include just the lead paragraphs. (OK, maybe I’ll consider doing a full RSS feed too.) Another issue is duplicate alerts can appear. I see this most often when stories have been syndicated by newspaper chains. One paper runs the story and others publish the same or similar content the same day or weeks later. For some people this is a feature and others it’s an annoyance. The bottom line is these free alert services do add value. Just realize that you will probably need to do some tweaking before you get the best results. Start slowly with one alert and then build up. You’ll probably find the biggest challenge is not what to include in your alerts, but what to leave out. Related Article |
|
| Last Updated ( Sunday, 07 September 2008 ) |
