I love the web. It’s a goldmine of information and entertainment that’s getting bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger. Every day, there’s something new to discover. A new app. A provocative article. An inspirational video.

With all this daily new iCandy (geddit?) hitting your browser, it’s no surprise that us web geeks are always looking for the next big thing. But what about the good old stuff? Let’s take a look at a rather nifty tool from one of the web’s biggest players that’s been around for a while.

Google Alerts lets you set up email updates of the latest relevant Google results (web, news, etc.) based on your choice of query or topic. But why’s it so useful?

If, like me, you’re writing a lot of content, keeping up with the latest events and musings on any particular topic is great for inspiration. Especially if what you’re writing is PR-ish and needs to be relevant to what’s happening now. One good online article sparks another. And another. And another. Before you can say PageRank, you’ll have lots of delicious incoming links to bump you up the rankings.

Let’s get hypothetical. One of Spring’s beloved clients is the sheepskin expert Nursey of Bungay. Sheepskin’s their thing, so it makes sense for the word ’sheepskin’ to be one of their topical alerts.

Thanks to Google Alerts, I can tell you that a sheepskin and chain mail belt has recently hit the catwalk.

I can also tell you that sales of the Baydan Model 271 Shoe are up 500%. The reason? They were the shoes thrown at George Bush by a journalist (they’ve since been renamed Bye Bye Bush). The lining? Sheepskin.

I could also tell you that sheepskin rugs appear to be back in vogue.

It’s not all relevant and useful, but short of Google reading your mind (they’re probably working on that, too) its Alerts service is a simple way of keeping up with topics.

If this is all old hat to you, perhaps it’s worth speculating on what Google do next (thanks to Jamie for the link).

Blog Post written by Erika Clegg