Categories: Articles

Google News Alerts Are Getting Better

While it’s no secret, I’m still surprised at how few people actually use Google News Alerts to track things like when your company, clients or topics of interest are mentioned in the global news. It’s really simple: you hop over to Google News Alerts and dump in as many terms as you wish to receive via email.
One thing I dislike about Google News Alerts is that I’d much prefer to subscribe via RSS than email, but beggars can’t be choosers (and, I’m sure, Google will release that functionality sometime soon). The other component that was disappointing was the few sources Google was scouring to retrieve results. For instance, I track the keywords “mitch joel” (for obvious reasons), but I would not always get notified if I was mentioned in a Blog posting or in some non-major news sources.
All of this seems to have changed in the past little while.
Turns out that Google recently updated their alerts to include those found in their Google Blog Search, according to the post, Old Google News Alerts Subscribers Getting Unwanted New Blog Search Alerts, from Search Engine Roundtable.
While this is frustrating to some, I say “bravo,” “thank you” and “welcome” to this new change. Granted, I could do without the mass amounts of increased email to my Blackberry, but it’s my choice – I have a lot of keywords plugged in to be alerted on.
Bottom line: Google News Alerts rock. It’s an incredible way to stay in the loop without being inundated with tons of news and articles that you don’t want. You might be surprised by the gems of content I’ve received with keyword triggers like “blog” and “second life.”

Mitch Joel

Mitch Joel lives at the intersection of technology, business transformation and consumer culture. He is the Executive Director of Next Era Institute, a strategic intelligence platform helping leaders understand the forces reshaping business, technology, culture and society. The Institute identifies which shifts matter, explores their wider significance and translates them into strategic direction and momentum. Mitch is also a globally recognized keynote speaker. He has delivered thousands of presentations across both B2B and B2C industries to organizations including Google, Walmart, LEGO, Shopify, Microsoft, Procter & Gamble and Unilever. Strategy Magazine has called him “one of North America’s leading visionaries.” Mitch built his career by working directly inside the waves of change that reshaped modern business. He founded and built a digital marketing agency that worked with some of the world’s largest brands and was later acquired by WPP, where he served as President of a firm operating in 25 countries with almost 3,000 employees. Mitch is the bestselling author of Six Pixels of Separation and CTRL ALT Delete, and the host of Thinking With Mitch Joel, one of the longest-running business podcasts in the world. His writing and commentary appear in outlets including Harvard Business Review, Fast Company and Inc. Magazine. He is a member of Dr. Marshall Goldsmith’s 100 Coaches and was named to the Thinkers50 Radar. Mitch also hosts Groove – The No Treble Podcast, documenting the oral history of electric bass players. Mitch is also Co-Founder of ThinkersOne, a platform that enables companies to bring personalized thought leadership from world-class experts into meetings, events and off-sites in focused 15-minute bursts.