Google Alert could vanish soon; it’s time to shift to alternatives!
You may have already seen the signs, and with the shut-down of Google Reader, things are already looking bleak for another of Google’s widely popular services, the Google Alerts. We were notified of the decline in the alerts by many of our regular readers a couple of weeks back, and it lead to an internal check, as we tried to see if we had got any alerts at all. And, certainly there had not been any at all, pointing to a foreseeable shut-down of the service. So we thought we could help you with some really good alternatives, right before any official announcement is made. It’s good to be prepared, isn’t it? Really good alternatives to Google Alerts are a bit scarce, and you may not have a lot of choice, but we found the three alternatives given below to be really acceptable.
#Mention: This is a great service with a very clean interface. Mention integrates your alerts for both business and personal environment. It’s available on Google Play and Apple Appstore. We found that Mention is really nifty when it comes to synchronizing the alerts, and actions to be taken for those alerts. That way, you do not have to go anywhere else to be able to do anything about that alert. Let’s take an example of a tweet that you may have set up an alert for. As soon as you get that in your alerts, you can just retweet it then and there. We thought this was a great feature, and certainly made the service great (& worth a ‘mention’ 
).
#Talkwalker Alerts: Another service we stumbled upon was the Talkwalker Alerts. In a way, this is more like Google Alerts than Mention. Talkwalker is highly simplistic, and really easy to create, which makes it really a smooth experience. If you have been a casual user of Google Alerts, and use it to just keep a track of simpler things, this could be the right replacement for you. This is however a web only service and no mention of an app for smart phones could be found on their website. So it’s going to be a bit limited in its usage, but one could always use it from their phone’s browser.
#Drippler: Last but not the least; Drippler is almost completely a mobile device solution for alerts. It works like a charm though, if you need a sophisticated tracking solution for other apps. You can get latest news about new apps, upgrades, and even latest tips about apps through Drippler. The app is available on both Google Play as well as APPSTORE. It’s really not for everyone though. You would love it only if you are big on tracking apps and tech-news.
Obviously this is a very short list for now, and especially because we did not include some of the other services that we thought were not so good. Hopefully, if and when an official announcement comes up, there would be much to add into this list. If you know any other really good alternatives, don’t be shy and share it with us!
