Google Alerts

Something that not everybody might know. Google Alerts is a very handy tool created by Google that allows you to experience the world of push information at a pace set by you.

What is push information? It's a form of information enrichment that happens passively without your active participation. Instead of going out there to find and learn more about a field, you set the system in such a way that the information is sent to you in digests for your consumption.

Many of us have experienced push information before, although these experiences are mostly in the form of annoying spam such as emails and promotional marketing. The whole field of marketing is probably epitomized by push information. But now, using Google Alerts, you can do the same thing for yourself, except you can choose what information to be pushed, and how often.

The beauty of the system lies in its simplicity. To get it to work, simply go to the Google Alerts page and enter in a topic you want to be kept up-to-date on, such as your favourite stock, company, singer, or what have you. Then enter in the frequency that you would like to be notified and GA will get to work immediately, emailing you the results when its done.

So far, I have set mine up to send me weekly updates on a few of my all-time favourite artists, and the benefit is some of the information sent to me is pretty interesting and outside the scope of information that I would normally seek, and I go through them when I need.