Best tools to get alerted to website updates
Staying up to date on content is crucial now a days, as thousands of terra bytes of information just rolls in every micro second. I realize that it is highly unlikely & highly impossible to track and assimilate every piece of such information, but there is a need to stay informed about whats happening in our professional industry or field of personal interests. It can be about google or golf, you want to know what’s happening. So here are the some of the tools I rely on to stay informed when the content on my favorite sites is updated.
1. www.notify.me
It is quicker than others + gives you choice to receive alerts through a desktop app/ email /instant messenger or even SMS on mobile.
Here’s a short youtube video that introduces the tool’s features. Notify.me
2. http://yotify.com Not as quick as notify but it is good.
3. http://google.com/alerts (in order to receive notifications from Google about new published content, it must first be indexed by the search engine which many not occur for several hours at least)
4. http://alerts.yahoo.com it usually takes nearly an hour or more
5. http://tweetbeep.com Establish alerts for words that appear on Twitter. You can set the alerts to occur hourly or daily and they can be based on any keywords or phrases and may be limited to certain people, places, attitudes, or whether or not the tweet includes links. (you might have to weed through tons of junk tweets)
Apart from these, I also use Google reader to keep an eye on industry happenings.
http://google.com/reader It constantly checks your favorite news sites and blogs for new content. It also has a built-in public page to easily share interesting items with others.
What tools do you use? and how do you like those?
- Shrinagesh
Google Realtime Search Demo
Google’s relentless drive to come up with innovative products/features is awe-inspiring. Check out this demo on Realtime search that Google posted today on Youtube.
As of now, I am not able to access this feature from Canada. Is anybody else seeing this feature?
Google Analytics Vs Yahoo Analytics
Google Analytics has evolved to become a very important factor in a web. I wonder how we lived without all the data and insights that we are deriving using this tool. Yahoo is getting serious with analytics through the purchase of Indextools. For obvious reasons, Yahoo made Indextools free with a rebrand into Yahoo Web Analytics (YWA). This leaves the users with rich, dynamic statistics derived from the innovative corporate competitiveness – all for free.
Here is a slideshow that compares Google analytics and Yahoo web analytics.
While absolutely anyone can signup for Google analytics, Yahoo has made its analytics available only to Yahoo Advertisers or through Yahoo web analytics authorized consultant. Google’s success mantra is making its products available to the widest audience possible without any constraints.
Share your opinion: Which analytics service are you using? and Why?