RSS is great technology, but one of its shortcomings is that it doesn't always represent all of a site's content stream. Many times there are parts of a news or content site that change either through an editorial hand, or with items chosen by users. A new Firefox add-on called AlertBox helps track these "scraps" of content, and can be used to keep an eye out for any changes. This includes things like price changes, edits or updates to a news story, and the top stories on content sites.
To make sure it's not looking for activity on an entire Web page, AlertBox is designed to let you grab bits and pieces of any site--not the entire thing. Once installed, you can summon it by clicking the little bell shape in the bottom corner of the browser, or using a keyboard combination. It then pops up with a selection screen that, similar to Apple's Web clips widget, lets you pick what part of the page you want it to track. You can then choose how often you want it to check for future changes in increments of two minutes, up to one day.
The AlertBox in-box lets you keep track of all your alerts, and delete ones you no longer use.
(Credit: CNET)AlertBox's way of tracking new content is an in-box-style counter down in the bottom of your browser. When clicked, it takes you to a page of Web clippings that are constantly updated with whatever the latest text is of the page elements you had selected. To be honest, this part of the add-on could use a little work, as it's just a text rip that loses all of the formatting on the page. And all of these alerts are housed not in the cloud, but on your local machine, which has two big downsides: One is that you need to have Firefox going at all times for it to alert you. The other is that you can only access those alerts on that particular machine.
Faults aside, I really like the idea of creating a simple in-box of changing content that does not rely on RSS. I think this, with a little bit of archiving to let you track changes in content throughout the day (like Web archiving service Iterasi does), would make for a very useful alternative to widget start pages and feed readers.
AlertBox lets you choose particular sections of a site to keep an eye on for updates.
(Credit: CNET)
IngBoo is a new service that aggregates RSS feeds and can track topics and keywords across multiple content sites. The service was pitched to me as a tracking tool, but it also serves double duty as a headline reader the likes of Netvibes and My Yahoo. It analyzes each feed to find out how fresh the information is, and will show you with a simple pie graph how often the latest stories came in. You can also preview some of the most recent headlines and click straight to them.
To create alerts you have to use its built-in search tool, which will pick which of its trackers best fits your query. You pick which ones you want, then set the priority for each which affects in what order and how often the service goes through its searches. You can then pick how you want alerts delivered, which includes e-mail, IM, and SMS messages.
IngBoo shows you how fresh a feed is with a pie-chart, and lets you preview the latest headlines before you subscribe.
(Credit: CNET)Where the service earns its stripes is letting you choose what time of day you want to be alerted when there are new items, which ranges anywhere from real time to just mornings, afternoons, and evenings. You're also able to set aside certain times when you don't want to be disturbed like on nights and weekends, which will control all of your alerts universally. There really aren't enough services that do this, and it's really nice--especially if you've got it set up to deliver SMS alerts.
While simple to use, I prefer Trackle and Alerts.com, both of which offer much more control over sources and per-alert settings, so you can set certain ones to send you real-time alerts, while others are simply provided as a weekly summary. If IngBoo were to add this, it would definitely be more valuable as a tool since you don't always want to get constant alerts for less important topics.
There are very few ways to view job openings, book a vacation, or find that perfect home without plowing through multiple websites and advertisements. Alertpedia is a useful website that saves you time by performing filtered searches based on what you're looking for. The search results are delivered in the form of a daily, weekly, or immediate email. The best part? No sign-up required.
Unlike websites like Kayak or Crazedlist, who deliver an immediate search result, Alertpedia saves you time by doing an automatic, periodical search. You can search for weather, traffic, jobs, travel, YouTube videos, and other categories.For example, if you are on a hunt for the best (cheapest) plane tickets from San Francisco to New York, fill out a one-time alert request, specify how often you'd like to be alerted, and Alertpedia takes care of the rest. You will receive weekly or daily emails with a summary of the current travel deals. This can be handy if you're booking travel in advance since it saves you time performing repeat searches on travel websites.
(Credit:
Sharon Vaknin/CNET Networks)
A great application for Alertpedia would be for moms and dads. Parents can be alerted on recent health hazards such as the recent breakout of salmonella, or tips for dealing with asthma. Alerts on product recalls, like the recent hooded sweatshirts are also valuable for the health and safety of children.
Though Alertpedia can be very practical, it does have a few weaknesses. When using the service, users should be careful about what filters they choose in their searches. A very general filter, or search term, could lead to endless results. On the other hand, a very specific term could minimize results and render the service useless.
Alertpedia is best utilized for those looking for information on an ongoing basis. Users can not filter their alerts based on travel dates, or set a specific price range for their Craig's List searches. Most importantly, the results are not delivered right away. For those looking for immediate results, other search engines would be more useful.
The weather over the past few days has been awful across the U.S. Just as I was thinking that spring had finally sprung, another six inches of snow fell and, once again, I was forced to head outside and start shoveling.
Only this time, I didn't even know the storm was coming. I hadn't visited my typical weather destinations on the Web and I hadn't checked out my mobile apps. It was, for the lack of a better term, a perfect storm. So when I woke up yesterday morning and saw just how much snow had fallen, you can imagine why I thought writing this column, detailing the best destinations across the Web for finding weather information quickly, was such a good idea.
Weather on the Web
AccuWeather
Where AccuWeather really shines is in its local page. Once you input your ZIP code, you'll be immediately brought to a page that takes a look at your local weather over the next 15 days (which is 5 more than you get at most sites). It also features hourly weather data, precipitation probabilities throughout the day, and radar images zoomed in on your location. On a calm day like today, there isn't much to see. But when bad weather is about to hit, I've found that AccuWeather's data is spot on.
For example, back in January, we were hit hard with almost a foot of snow in my area. Other sites like The Weather Channel expected the snow to start at about 8 a.m. and dump 8 inches before it moved on. When it was all said and done, AccuWeather had it right: the snow started at noon and we had over a foot to shovel out. It's not an isolated event. Time and again, AccuWeather has proved itself as the most reliable source I use for weather information.
The Weather Channel
The Weather Channel's homepage is designed well and it provides good information about the biggest weather stories in the U.S. While that's a welcome addition, when something major is happening in a specific area of the country, I've found that the homepage doesn't offer much more than that, making it generally useless for quickly checking out local weather reports.
While local pages on The Weather Channel do offer basic information like current temperature and forecasts up to 10 days, I've found that there isn't as much data as I would like. In fact, the site features far less information than what you can find on a site like AccuWeather. Sure, it has the radar maps and you can put those in motion, but by and large, I was generally unimpressed by how deep it goes. And as mentioned earlier, I've found that it's not as accurate as AccuWeather, which makes it a less than ideal destination.
That said, the Weather Channel redeems itself with its ubiquity. You can easily search the site from your Firefox browser, since it's one of your choices in the search bar and if you query Google with "weather," you can search the company's site directly in the search engine. Even better, if you sign up for Weather.com, it can send weather alerts to your mobile phone or e-mail address. It's a simple addition and sometimes it can be annoying when it sends weather advisories for areas far away from where you live, but it comes in handy when a storm is on the way.
WeatherUnderground
The first thing that struck me about WeatherUnderground was how well it's designed. Unlike the sites mentioned already, WeatherUnderground's front page features a map placed prominently in the middle of the page, as well as a general forecast for the entire nation if you want to get a quick view of what's going on. The site also makes it easy to switch maps from "Fronts," showing where the weather currently is, to temperature, humidity, radar, and others. It has it all.
However, once I made my way to the local page on WeatherUnderground I wasn't so impressed. It didn't forecast days nearly as far out as AccuWeather, and the information provided seemed far more basic than what I could find on competing sites. That said, it boasts an outstanding feature, dubbed "Weather Stations," that provides you with all the necessary information like temperature, current conditions, wind, and much more from every weather station in the area. When I searched for my location, I found more than 30 weather stations. It was an ideal tool to find out how the weather was around town.
WeatherUnderground isn't the best destination on the Web if you want accurate weather data; AccuWeather once again provided the best forecasts. But with a great-looking homepage and some useful features found on its local pages, WeatherUnderground isn't a bad stop on your way to finding local reports and extended forecasts.
Mobile apps and alerts
You can also find some nice tools on your mobile phone, including mobile apps and alert services that make it quick and easy to get weather data no matter where you are. (Note: Each of the sites above offer free weather apps that I won't review here. But I will say that they're all worth using.)
WeatherBug
WeatherBug isn't the best forecast destination and it won't stand up to more robust online sites like AccuWeather, but when you're in a rush and you want information quickly, it's an ideal app because it's free and feature packed.
When I started using WeatherBug on my iPhone, I was shocked at how much the developers packed into the lightweight app. Along with forecasts and radar, the app boasts hour-by-hour data, precipitation expectations, and much more. But my favorite feature has little to do with weather at all: each location you search for in WeatherBug features a camera page, which lets you see a real-time snapshot of the area. It's depressing when I look outside and see snow and then look up Key West, Fla., in WeatherBug and see a beach and sunny skies. But it's still a neat feature.
WeatherBug also provides alerts and advisories from the National Weather Service. In a matter of moments after a weather advisory is issued, WeatherBug pings the app and updates its alerts section with the advisory. It's a useful feature when the weather gets really bad.
The National Weather Service Mobile
Along with your local forecast and current conditions, the National Weather Service mobile page features a satellite image of the U.S. that you can loop, and local radar to see where the bad weather is and where it's going. It's simply the best way to get radar data on a mobile phone.
Weather Alerts
Weather Alerts will send you a text message or e-mail each time there's a weather advisory issued by the National Weather Service. The information includes all the weather information included in the advisory, and more will filter in as conditions change. The alerts can be annoying at times, and you probably won't care to receive them once the weather advisory expires, but it's a good way to receive updates when your power is out and you need information quickly, for example.
Weather Alerts are free and the information they provide couldn't be more up-to-date or useful. And although there are times when I wish I didn't subscribe to the service, it's my handy companion when the power is out and there's a bad storm raging overhead. If nothing else, it's a great service to have as a backup when you can't access other sites.
Got any of your own favorites? Leave them in the Talkback.
I am a big, big fan of tools that monitor the Web. Some of my favorites include Google Alerts which I use to track where our stories show up, AreMySitesUp, which I use to keep an eye on Web site uptime, and PriceProtectr which watches for drops and increases from various retailers. Trackle, a service that's coming out of private beta on Tuesday, is hoping to replace all three--and many others--by corralling all of these various alerts into one, large in-box. Is it a keeper? I think so.
Much like competitor Yotify, Trackle lets you peruse a long list of sites to find something interesting to track. Once you do, it has a specially created setup wizard for each site that make setting up a new alert a snap. For example, if you want to track crime in your neighborhood, you simply plug in your street address. The wizard expands to give you options on how big a radius you want to search from, along with what specific crimes you want to be notified about.
The same goes for any other "tracklet" of which there are about 100. Users can rate these tracklets with a one to five star rating, and send feedback for changes. The service also keeps track of which ones are the most popular, which as of this writing is one that tracks stock ticker symbols for pricing and related news.
Trackle's in-box lets you view all your alert news in one place. You can also filter it based on the categories on the left.
(Credit: CNET Networks)I found the service's real power to be in its in-box-centric design. Sure you can get everything forwarded to your e-mail in-box, or phone (via SMS), but the built in alerts in-box is far more powerful. Here you can view everything you're keeping an eye on in one place. It's set up in ascending chronological order, so the newest stuff is always on top. Likewise you can go in and adjust each alert, including whether or not friends can see it, and its notification settings.
Trackle's one weak point is that its social networking is very underdeveloped. You can see what a friend is tracking, but first you'll need the e-mail address he or she signed up with. Likewise, once you've seen what he or she is tracking, you can't actually set up a tracklet for that stream of information, which would let you be alerted to new things they're tracking. Admittedly, this could become overwhelming with a big enough social circle, but it seems like a missed opportunity.
To its credit, the service is integrated with Twitter, so if you can send any item out as a Tweet, or share an entire tracklet to your feed. It will also soon have integration with Facebook. Other upcoming features include a vacation mode where you can suspend all your tracklets for a specified period of time, as well as a location tool that will automatically adjust all your alerts for where you are. A bookmarklet and toolbar are also in the works, which will make it easier to start a tracklet from any site you're on.
Related:
Never have a quiet moment with Alerts.com
Yotify takes too much work
Twhirl (download) and AlertThingy, two social-publishing tools that run exclusively on Adobe's AIR, have been freshly updated to support more services and come with some cool (and useful) new features:
As we blogged about a few weeks back, Twhirl was working on giving Seesmic users a way to record videos, not just view them. The new version lets you do that and also adds Ping.fm support across the board, letting you cross post to other accounts you may have.
Other new goodies include a spell checker, Bit.ly link shortener, and an option to have any search pop up with real-time results as they update. This is especially useful for Twitter since you can keep an eye on the velocity of a heavily tweeted event or keyword as it's happening.
AlertThingy (coverage), which launched its third version early Tuesday now includes support for Basecamp, Huddle, Ping.fm, TwitPic, Twitter's search engine, and Yammer. Three of those: Basebamp, Huddle, and Yammer, mark a decidedly business-centric movement of the app. Instead of open and public social networks, these three are for small (or large) teams or private organizations who are working on something. For those using one or more of these services, this update makes the tool a little more attractive.
Another change from the previous version is a new view that like Tweetdeck, lets you stretch out Twitter feeds into separate compartments. This lets you keep an eye on replies and private messages at the same time as you've got your main feed up.
SAN DIEGO--We all have very busy lives and a big part of that is trying to manage a steady flow of new information.
Here at DemoFall today, Alerts.com unveiled its new intelligent alerts delivery dashboard.
The idea is that users can pick and choose Web sites on which to set up alerts and then aggregate them all on the Alerts.com site for delivery to whatever devices they want.
For example, if you're looking for an apartment and want to use Craigslist to find it, you can sign up for an alert directly through Alerts.com--instead of having to set it up on Craigslist itself--and then select where and how you want the alert delivered.
The same is true for dozens of other Web sites in many different categories, such as entertainment, sports, news and so on.
Once all the alerts are set up, you can use a pretty simple dashboard to organize and control them all. The dashboard shows a list of all the alerts, how the information from them is to be delivered and an easy on/off switch.
Outlook alerts have regularly saved my professional career. I also use a scheduled alert to wake me up in the morning that's successful as long as I change it up every few weeks. Some people need a little more though, which is where a service like the freshly launched Alerts.com could be a life saver.
Alerts lets you set up your e-mail, home and mobile phones to get alerts for just about anything. Some of the more useful ones include weather and gas prices, but there are entertainment ones as well, like the horoscopes and daily tidbits which are essentially factoids. You can go in and tweak which ones you want to receive, and with what velocity throughout the day. The service also has a scheduler to keep you from receiving alerts at certain times during the day and week, along with an away mode that can be toggled remotely to stop all messages entirely.
There are currently just 10 alerts to choose from, but there are many more coming in the near future like one that pulls in RSS feeds and another for watching the prices of goods you're tracking online. All of them are partnered with other sites to provide the data, like the job hunting widget which will hunt down jobs for you based on keywords and geographical proximity using a database from Jobster. Developers can also build their own alerts with an API that plugs into the site's architecture. To make money off this, small ads are tacked on to the end of messages as space allows--a business model I don't think works very well when you're trying to squeeze news into 140 characters to begin with.
Competing services include Yahoo Alerts, Google Alerts, 4Info, and the now defunct Down2Nite.
Pick from a shortlist of alerts you can set up to get e-mailed or sent to your phone as a text message with Alerts.com.
(Credit: CNET Networks)
Shortly after Loic Le Meur's Seesmic acquired the excellent Twitter client Twhirl, the new geek hotness FriendFeed got its first AIR application, Alert Thingy (review), which also handles Twitter feeds. Le Meur charged his new employee with putting FriendFeed features into Twhirl to maintain parity.
FriendFeed support in the current version of Twhirl is pretty sparse. If you find it frustrating, however, sit tight for a few more hours because yet another update to Twhirl is on the way, Le Meur told me tonight.
This new version will let you post images to your FriendFeed account just by dragging them into your window. That could be pretty cool if you're a FriendFeed user. Personally, I'm hoping that the Twhirl developer finds a way to integrate Twitter and FriendFeed data into one window; the current two-window setup takes up too much screen real estate.
We also await Alert Thingy's latest update in this enjoyable game of AIR application leapfrog.
A lot of window space for news about nothing
FaveBot is a service that keeps an eye on whatever keywords you give it to pull up related items from the Web. If you're familiar with Google Alerts, the idea is similar. In Favebot's case, you can take any keyword or set of keywords and apply it to the types of content you're looking to keep an eye on, be it photos, videos, blog posts, or podcasts. There are nine categories in all, and the system is designed to serve it up like a river of news with the most recent items appearing on the top.
What's neat about FaveBot is that it uses location as part of the filtering. For example, if you live in Texas and earmark a word like Web 2.0 and opt into the events category, you'll get the heads up on when the service finds local happenings that match up with that category (e.g. SXSW). By adding more types of items on your tracking list, you can increase your chances of seeing them in the main news stream.
Each set of keywords can be dialed in by what type of content you're looking for. Each set also has its own RSS feed.
Besides the river of information that's all mixed up, each keyword you're tracking has its own RSS feed. These can simply be subscribed to in Google Reader or whatever RSS catcher you happen to be using if you feel like skipping the site entirely. Each item also has its own permalink so you can share it with friends in the same place as your other items from that feed, although my guess is that people will simply link back to where the content was originally found.
Speaking of which, the sources are from all over, but there's a blacklist curated by humans. This is an attempt to keep some of the spammy sources from pervading your news stream. The service also recommends you combine three or more keywords together (unlike I did in the screenshot above) to avoid getting irrelevant results. Putting in "Webware" as a keyword in all of the categories brought in a good grouping of related content, although as warned, some items ended up being less focused.
I've looked at a few other services that do similar things but just for news (see Fav.or.it and Tiinker). There's also Persai, a machine learning search tool put together by the guys from Uncov that does a more advanced version of this by putting several keywords together into packages for you and learning what content to serve you based on what you like and dislike. In either case the difference between human recommended content and machine is starkly different, and worth giving a go if you're on the hunt for new content to enjoy.
