Keeping completely current with all the changes on the Web is an impossible task. But there are several services that can help by providing a current awareness service for monitoring changes in specific Internet information resources, from Web pages to news sites to Usenet news. The idea of a current awareness service, something that notifies a user when new documents are available, has been a standard offering from commercial online services for years. Current awareness services are a natural match for the capabilities of the Internet, but have been slow to win popular appeal.
Current awareness tools are basically push products. Long before the idea of push technology was popularized, current awareness services were pushing new bibliographic references from online databases to people by paper mail or email. And while it lacks the multimedia pizzazz of some of the over-hyped push technologies that have failed to become the new killer technology, the simple push of email remains an extremely important way to deliver information content.
So what kind of information can Internet current awareness tools push? In general, they can push any kind of information on the Web. While traditional current awareness tools include bibliographic information from published resources, Internet current awareness tools can email notices of Web page changes, new search engine results, the most recent Usenet news articles, and current news stories.
The available Internet current awareness services are still first generation tools. Of the ones mentioned shortly, only a few are trying to sell a commercial product in addition to their free service. The companies are not likely candidates for stratospheric initial public offerings or buyouts--these services are used only by a small section of the Internet public. Consequently, the future development and improvement will likely be slow. These products may well remain as specialists' services, but they can be important information gathering tools.
post by santan...30th...july......
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