BiblioTech
... the online magazine of the Library Student Organization (LSO) of the University of Arizona, Tucson, USA
Why I Love Webpage Update Notification Services
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Webpage update notification services (also known as web-monitoring systems), enable subscribed users to be notified automatically by e-mail of any changes to content, of a designated webpage, that resides in any locale on the internet.
A practical use by a librarian might be to designate for notification the webpage of the American Library Association’s publication Booklist, including Reference Books Bulletin (http://www.ala.org/BKL_Template.cfm?Section=booklist). Each time the association updates their webpage with the latest in new book reviews, and reviews of electronic media, the librarian is notified by e-mail of the update. The librarian saves a tremendous amount of time with the automatic service, learning when website content has changed, and need not worry about ‘forgetting’ to check an important website (Monitor..., 2004). My personal favorite is InfoMinder. For nine dollars per year, I have the capability of monitoring up to twenty pages at one time. As soon as a modification is made to a webpage which I have targeted, I am notified by e-mail of the contents of the update. One page which I monitor regularly is that of the LSO, the Library Student Organization, for which this publication is produced (http://timon.sir.arizona.edu/lso/default.html). Last week I received the following e-mail from InfoMinder:
Without any effort on my part, I learned the up-to-the-minute news events happening with the organization, right from my own e-mail inbox. Had I chosen to, I could have clicked on "View this page with changes marked" to go to a replica of the LSO webpage to see the exact changes highlighted in yellow.
Uses at Home For many students, the free web notification service ChangeDetect may be better suited to the budget. I used ChangeDetect in the past, prior to registering for InfoMinder, to monitor the homepage of my sons' school. Last March, I received the following e-mail:
With a busy schedule, like many students, I didn't have time to check my sons' school webpage everyday, to know what activities were going on. ChangeDetect did it for me. How to Initiate Users may initiate the notification service in one of three ways: 1) by registering the targeted webpage at the vendor’s website (ChangeDetect, InfoMinder, WatchThatPage),
Vendor Options Vendors offer the service of change detection with varying capabilities, such as:
The sustainability of web notification update services is fluid. One need only look at the evolution of ChangeDetect to understand the constant change in the software product category. One of the most popular and heavily used detection services, Pumatech’s Mind-It, went out of business Summer 2002, and was absorbed by new player ChangeDetect (Bell, 2002). The new concern proceeded further to absorb other detection service companies, as well.
Currently there are seven contenders worth examining. A description of the web update notification product, the publisher, cost, and web address follow. Give one a try. You have nothing to lose, and most are free or have a free-trial period. 1. Online: ChangeDetect (formerly Netmind’s URL Minder: www.urlminder.com; Pumatech’s MyMindit, www.mymindit.com,; SpyOnIt, www.spyonit.com; and URLyWarning: www.urlywarning.com ). San Francisco, California: ChangeDetect Enterprise Solutions Group. Free. www.changedetect.com 2. Online: ChangeDetection. Santa Cruz, California: FreeFind.com. Free. www.changedetection.com 3. Online: InfoMinder. Palo Alto, California and Bangalore, India: iMorph, Incorporated. Fee, annual subscription (from US$9.00 for 20 pages to US$179.00 for 1,000 pages, >5000 contact vendor for price). www.infominder.com/webminder 6. Download: Check&Get. Izhevsk, Russia: Dmitry Skorniakov dba ActiveURLs. Fee, one-time (personal version: US$39.95; professional version: US$79.95). http://www.activeurls.com
With their extraordinary convenience, low price, and ease-of-use, yes, you can learn to love webpage update notifcation services, too.
References Bell, S. J. (2002). Do I detect a change? School Library Journal, 48(11, Fall), 42. Retrieved March 13, 2005, from: Academic Search Premier database. Monitor internet sites automatically with Check&Get. (2004). GUI [Graphical User Interface] Program News, 15(10, October). Retrieved March 16, 2005, from: Info Trac OneFile Plus database.
(photo: Miner, 1996, retrieved February 28, 2005, from: http://www.uniforum.org/news/html/publications/ufm/sept96/mining.html) How to cite this document: Bronte-Matheny, N. (2005). Why I love webpage update notification services. BiblioTech, 3(1). Retrieved [insert date here], from: http://www.sir.arizona.edu/lso/bibliotech/2005sep_vol3_no1/matheny_web.htm
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