I've got several diabetes related 'google' alerts set up. Every day, they email me new links that match my search terms. While sites like Diabetes Daily are great for feeding me news and updates from inside the Diabetes Online Community, the google reports tend to give me more news and 'outsider' updates.
It also gives me daily links to articles about how exercise can reduce your risk of diabetes. I swear that's the most common topic I get. I really should do a comparison at some point of stories about 'stuff we know already' and 'new stuff'.
During weeks (months) like this one where my life slips into high gear, I get a little backlogged. I have over 100 diabetes related google alerts just sitting in my gmail waiting for me to filter them to find the 'good ones'.
So I've switched to weekly mode. I just can't seem to keep up with the daily ones. I think it'll also help as I continue to add more terms to find more unusual and interesting links. I havn't found a way to roll up the searches so I just get one big email instead of a bunch of little ones for each variation. Generic searches like 'diabetes' don't return much that interest me right now, but 'glucose meter' occasionally returns something new and interesting.
But it's an interesting tool, and quick to set up - just head over to www.google.com/alerts to try it.
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3 comments:
Hi Laura. You've hit on a great and powerful tool.
I've been using it to retrieve pertinent news stories since I set up my "Missing Diabetics" page. I get updates every day, and never have to worry about forgetting to search manually for people who've gone missing.
It really saves a lot of time.
I'm with you Laura, Google Alerts keep me up to date with new developments. I've even got specific alerts, like one for 'Denise Faustman', for some reason I'm fascinated by her research! :-)
I don't think I can go to a weekly time frame. Though maybe, like you, for the summer.
I also use the alerts to add new sites to my diabetes search tool. First I have to check them out, because there are way too many spam blogs and fishy sites. You may find the search facility useful, and I donate the advertising money ($68 to date) to Dr. Faustman's research.
Thank you for the link! I'm a little behind in my "using technology for good," and I just signed up for my own Google alert.
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