Tag: Notifications

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News

Twitter Enables Email Notification of Mentions and Retweets!

Twitter has started rolling out a new notification feature. The notification feature allows notifying users through an email about retweets and when ever someone mentions their username in a tweet.

Twitter had earlier announced it was rolling now the new notification feature in a tweet.

How Email Notification will work!

  • For power users, such notifications will be a good idea. The retweet or @mention notification is sent only if it is from a person you are following.
  • That way, useless spam can be avoided especially when bots can often end up retweeting or mentioning your username.
  • The option should show up under Twitter Settings >> Notifications. I did not have the new notification feature on my account, but Deepak Jain (Editor – DW) @DJain1989 has the feature on his twitter account. Here is a screen-shot of how the email looks for @mention notifications.

Email notification are very good for people who cannot spend time on Twitter looking up and replying to all mentions and retweets. Currently, Twitter is used to share information and links a lot more than anything else. This new feature might increase interaction between users when it comes to discussions.

Do drop in your comments and views.

Related: @Devils_Workshop on Twitter

Categories
Tips

Get Notified on Your Desktop When Google Docs are Updated

Since over a year I hardly use anything but Google Docs. Also at my work-place, we all use Google Docs, and that means I do end up having a lot of documents to keep track. This is not easy as most documents are collaborative efforts and you can lose track of newer updates carried out by others.

One issue is how to keep track of all the Docs which are shared with my colleagues. Google Docs Notifier is a desktop tool which sends you notifications every time a document is updated.

Google Docs Notifier Features

  • This is a free software which works with Windows XP, Windows Vista and the latest Windows 7.
  • Just log in with your Google credentials into the program and it keeps tracks of the Google Docs being updated.
  • When a document is updated it gives you a desktop notification along with info on the person who made those changes.
  • The Notifier also shows all unread or unviewed documents.

In case you are not using Discussion on Google Docs then I would recommend using Google Docs Notifier. It seems to be quite useful. Do drop in your comments.

Link: Google Docs Notifier

Categories
Tips

Get notified of Google Wave through your email

A few weeks ago I had covered a Chrome extension and Firefox add-on which covered notification of Google Wave on your browser. This is quite useful for people using Wave either extensively or not much at all. I personally think that I if you are using Google Wave not that often you might want to be notified about it as through your email rather than with a browser add-on.

Google Wave Notifications in Gmail

  • You need to sign-in to your Google Wave account and under navigation with the Inbox you can see a drop down menu.
  • Here just select the time you need to be notified. If you are using it not that often a daily notification should be enough.
  • Finally click on ‘Save’ and you are set to get all Wave notifications on your Gmail address.
  • I tried to check if you can change the address for the notification and I could not. I guess that is a problem if you are not using that Gmail id as you main email address.

I don’t think that this is very important feature but I think this way Google Wave will be finding it’s way into Gmail and other Google services. Some have questions what purpose Google Wave serves but I think the technology which was used to create Wave will be making its way into other Google services to make them great collaborative tools.

Do let me know your view through your comments.

Link: Google Wave

Categories
Reviews

Get notifed by email if your website is down

If you own a website you might have shared you own issues with having your website down. For a blogger this can also mean precious loss of traffic and subsequently a loss of revenue. Wasitup.com is one such website that monitors your website and sends you an email if it goes down.

Features

  • Wasitup.com conducts a HTTP HEAD request and checks if the statud code is 200 OK. This means it checks if the page you have submitted is up and running.
  • If you specify a text within the url, it checks if the text is present or not in the HTTP body.
  • Once your website is down you receive an email. Your website is checked every 5 minutes. 🙂
  • You can monitor upto 10 websites per account.

I think this would be quite useful for someone who is working part time as a blogger or might be away on vacation for a few days. Obviously at such times a email notification of the downtime would be greatly beneficial.

Let me know what do you think about Wasitup.com through your comments. 🙂

Categories
News

Orkut Gave Facelift To Email Notifications Again!

Orkut improved their email notifications in past many times but recent improvements are the best one!

It has clean white background and all helpful links organized in sections. Just have a look at following screenshots…

  

By the way those who miss email notifications for community-related updates, can use our free service OrkutFeeds.

Thanks Deepak for update! 🙂

Categories
News

Orkut Scrap Notification Emails Just Got Better!

Story 1: Around 3 months back, Orkut improved its email notifications for activities like someone send you a friend request, post a scrap in your scrapbook, etc.

Story 2: At OrkutFeeds, our service which provide updates for Orkut scrapbooks in RSS feeds format, user demanded we should offer an email alert service where they can get complete scrapbook updates. They wanted emails with actual content of scraps!

Now a new update by Orkut connects these two stories. Orkut has improved email notification for scraps, again!

As you can see, above email notification screenshot contains, actual content of scrap as well as display pic of sender.

The only problem with display pic if you are a Gmail user is: you have to enable display of images in every scarp notification email you will get. It would have better if Orkut has used same common email ID to send all notifications.

Anyway this is real treat for users who don’t use Orkut much. Thanks Sreejoy. 🙂

Useful Link: OrkutFeeds – Get RSS Feed for Orkut Scrapbooks

Categories
News

New Look For Orkut Email Notifications is Here

As posted by InsideOrkut and re-posted by official Orkut blog, new look for email notifications are here.

Well it looks pretty without any doubt, but it would have been better if Orkut team have spent energy making Orkut itself better.

On the other hand, if they really wanted to improve email notifications, they could do it better by adding more information in notifications like:

  • In scrap notification, actual content of scrap could be sent
  • Same thing can be done for testimonials
  • If somebody post a comment on a pic, that comment itself could be conveyed in email.
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One reason, many social networking do not send actual information in notifications is, it will decreases total number of pageviews for their website.

Its strange to see a service like Orkut, which is run by Google, avoiding this for traffic ranking when it will significantly improve user experience. Also it will slightly decrease load on Orkut server, which means more donuts for Orkut users who really spend lots of time on it.

If you have any second thought on this, please let us know. 🙂