I’ve never used Google Alerts before, but after reading the anecdote on the Jim Morrison article, I see its value.
The overflow of information on the Internet often overwhelms me. Content management tools like RSS feeds and Google Alerts are necessary to organize this information logically. They also make relevant information easily accessible.
While I was reading the assigned article about Google Alerts, I thought about how useful this tool will be for the presentation I have to make for my media ethics class. My group is going to present on the issue of moderating comments on news websites. Our task is to show both sides of the spectrum, and then reach a middle ground. Should comments be moderated? Is this a violation of free speech? Which guidelines do editors follow in making these decisions?
Our group will focus our argument on articles pertaining to the subject of immigration and Arizona Law. By adding these keywords to my Google Alerts I will be up to date on all the articles I can use for my presentation. Amazing.
I think that the key to online innovation right now is personalization. It almost seems like human nature to want to to single out the information that we find relevant and ignore everything else. We want our browsers to display our favorite fonts and colors, we want to have news aggregates cater to our needs and we want to be able to feel at home at any computer that we use. Delicious bookmarks, Dropbox accounts and social media websites are just some of the online tools that contribute to this personalization revolution. I wonder what will be next.
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