Google Newsalerts

August 6, 2003 8:05 PM

Have Google keep you up to date with a news item. But judging from the vast assortment of news and comment out there, can even Google keep up?
posted by kablam (9 comments total)

Not sure if I'm flying off topic here but.......

I have this feeling I'll soon be wearing Google underwear and drinking Google coffee or driving a Google car. Hell, maybe all three at the same time. Is it just me or are they becoming "all things to all people"? I get my news from varied sources, much like the rest of you so I doubt I'll need alerts. My face is pretty much buried in current events that I probably won't miss anything worthy of being alerted about.
posted by KevinSkomsvold at 9:48 PM on August 6, 2003

Hey, Kevin...

You mentioned Google underwear... and Google coffee.. no car yet I'm afraid.

Aw, come one. Stop being such a downer. The News Alerts app is still search based, no? If they decided to release an OS or a new brand of beer.. then you would be justified. I personally am loving the new labs release.
posted by antidigerati at 10:45 PM on August 6, 2003

I signed up. So far I like it. Glad I didn't pay $20 for the NY Times keyword email service.
posted by gen at 12:57 AM on August 7, 2003

It's a bit surprising Google has taken so long to do this. Yahoo News has been providing the same service for aaaaaages. The one superb point about this is that you don't have to register for anything - and you can be pretty sure that Google aren't going to sell you email on to anyone for spam purposes.
posted by humuhumu at 4:12 AM on August 7, 2003

Won't need it to follow the new candidates for Governor, as long as we have MetaFilter...
posted by wendell at 4:44 AM on August 7, 2003

I started a search for "Howard Dean" because it's fun to read articles about his campaign. It's like the NPR of the presidential race.
posted by VulcanMike at 6:47 AM on August 7, 2003

Another Google coffee mug.

Google/Dilbert Mug
posted by Bonzai at 8:23 AM on August 7, 2003

I started a search for "Pepsi Blue" because it's fun to read articles about the product.
posted by turbodog at 9:47 AM on August 7, 2003

Never got a response to this, but I'm happy they finally implemented it:

From Erik Moeller
To: [e-mail]
Subject: News Alert System?
Date: 20 Sep 2002 00:49:08 +0200

Hi,

have you considered a news alert system, where I could enter search
terms, e.g.

bush iraq oil

and would be alerted by e-mail when news stories that contain them are
indexed? This could be turned into a viable business model, e.g. by
allowing 5 free search terms per email address but charging a $5 flat
fee per month for more.

If possible, such an alert system would also be useful for newly indexed
websites ("alert me when new websites index my name") or usenet posts,
but the news search is the most obvious application. Database providers
like Lexis Nexis are already making money with this type of service, but
you could strongly underbid them by relying on free online sources.

To advertise it, Google could add a little "Alert me by email when new
pages containing 'search terms' are added to our index" link to all
search result pages.

The e-mail itself should contain the URL and a fair use excerpt from the page (at the very least the title) so that it can be plausibly guessed
if it's a false positive.

Regards,

Erik
posted by Eloquence at 12:16 PM on August 7, 2003