Thursday, November 27, 2008

Watch Any Site for Certain Stories with Notify.Me



 
 

Sent to you by Hemi via Google Reader:

 
 

via MakeUseOf.com by Sharninder on 26/11/08

notifylogoNotify.Me is a service that informs you of updates to your favorite websites using a variety of different methods. You can even get updates from your Facebook, LinkedIn or Evite account and have them delivered to you over SMS or plain ol' email.

But the best feature of Notify.Me is being updated about specific keyword articles - more on that later though.

To get started with Notify.Me, head on over to the website and click on 'Register'. Give them a username, password and an arm and a leg … oh sorry, your email address. That should do it. You'll get an email from Notify.Me with an embedded link. Click on the link to verify your email address and you're good to go.

notifymain

Once you're logged in, you'll have to set up your Notify.Me account. From here on, the process involves following a simple wizard and giving the website some information.

The first screen asks you for your mobile number so that Notify.Me can send you notifications over SMS. I don't know if you'd like to be SMS'ed every time Techcrunch posts a new article but for news and similar stuff, I can definitely see the use.

Did I tell you that you can also configure Notify.Me to send you updates over IM ? The next step in the account setup wizard shows you how to do exactly that. They have instructions for working with Pidgin, Google Talk, Adium and Jabber, so they've got pretty much all operating systems covered, although personally I'd love to see MSN and Yahoo messenger also on that list.

notifyIM

The next screen asks will let you enter all the feeds that you'd like notify.me to keep a track of.

notifysource

The best part is that you can even filter the kind of notifications that you want to be, well, notified about.

For example, suppose you only want to hear about Gmail related articles on MakeUseOf. Just head over here to MakeUseOf. In the search box, type Gmail and press enter. Now, copy the URL from the address bar and paste it in the Notify.Me text box marked 'Feed'. That's it.

Now, every time there is an article mentioning Gmail on Make Use Of, you'll get a notification. You can even filter the source further by specifying keywords in the filter text box. Click on the IM, SMS or email icon to set the method by which you want to get your fix … err, feed.

notifyfilter

This can also obviously be done for any other blogs too where you would like to only be notified about articles on particular subjects.   Just go to that site, enter the subject into the blog's search engine and copy the URL into Notify.Me's text box.

So, you're all set now? What if one day you're surfing your blues away and come across a really interesting site and would like to see that added to your notify list?  Well, Notify.Me has you covered there too. With the bookmarklets that they provide, you can add new sources to your account as fast as you can click the bookmark button.

I can definitely see myself using this service to keep myself abreast of the latest news and blog posts. Are there any other similar services that you guys use ? I'd love to hear about them.

(By) Sharninder is a programmer, blogger and a geek making a living writing software to change the world. He is also passionate about open source and loves to ride around the country on his Royal Enfield motorcycle. Read all about his exploits at his weblog - NomadicRider.

Enjoyed the article? Please leave a comment and tell us what you think about it

New here? Get your cheat sheets and freebies at MakeUseOf Downloads. Enjoy!

Tags:email, IM, notification, SMS, update

Related posts


 
 

Things you can do from here:

 
 

1 comment:

rabekahmarshall said...

I am so impressed with the creative ideas of this article. I look forward to visiting this site again.
Are you looking for easy guide to write a dissertation than our blog has a solution for you. just click on buy dissertation to get all the basic information to write a dissertation.