This week we learned how to use two of Google's many services: Alerts and Reader. Both services are based on the idea of having information coming to the users instead of users finding information. Google Reader utilizes RSS Feeds, which allows Reader to sync with the website the user has subscribed to in realtime, displaying any new content as it is published. In other words, Reader is a personalized dynamic newspaper that updates itself in realtime. Subscriptions can be added easily from websites that you often visit. Browsers now has built-in RSS buttons and many websites are RSS compatible.
Google Alerts follows a similar philosophy, except instead of using RSS Feeds, it uses keywords, just like a normal Google search. The way it works is every time a new search result for a certain keyword is indexed by Google, it sends you an email or sends a notification to your Google Reader feed. How often it relays the notification is can be customized.
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