File this one under Orwell’s 1984 coming to life. It’s now possible to keep track of any and all content online with just a few clicks. Does your school update a variety of websites, facebook pages, twitter accounts, or other online community? Does your head spin just thinking about how to find out if your school is closed? Did you want to find a particular speaking event your professor will be at but have no idea where to start? Google, per usual, is here to help. They have a very helpful tool (free!) that helps anyone monitor anything. It’s called Google Alerts.
How does it work?
Head over to http://www.google.com/alerts and type in the keyword, name, or other term you want to get e-mails about. Select how often, when, and where you want the e-mail sent. Inside the e-mail contains a link and brief excerpt about where your term was mentioned online. For popular things, this can be quite a long list. For your local school, university, or college, try to refine your terms so the e-mails are of actual use to you. For example, instead of ‘Harvard’ type in ‘Harvard Business School Conferences’ if that’s what you’re interested in learning about.
Who uses it?
In a non-scientific poll around the office, everyone who has tried it, loves it. I have personally tried to refine the terms I have Google Alerts set up for since some of the terms were initially too broad. The e-mails are set to come once a day and usually appear in the late afternoon when I’m searching for some inspiration on events happening in the area.
What about privacy?
Google Alerts is Orwellian it seems. So how do you stop just anyone from monitoring you online? There are some tips and tricks: be careful about what you post. Operate under the idea that whatever you post online can be seen by your boss, spouse, children, and parents. I think if you keep this idea in your mind while remembering that Big Brother is out there, you should be all set. Remember, if you are new to social media, you should not be posting much of anything personal on Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, and other sites.
Give it a whirl
Want to check it out? Head over to the Alerts page and type in a keyword. You’ll need a Google account to use this so be sure to set one up here if you don’t have one yet and want to take advantage of Alerts.
