Track your interests effortlessly with Google Alerts

Back in my ad agency days, we subscribed to clipping services—you paid a hefty fortune, they sent you all the news in print on your items of choice.

Today, you can track virtually anything you want electronically for free with Google Alerts. Just go the the site (http://www.google.com/alerts) and plug in your specs for each search in the familiarly simple Google interface. You can create as many alerts as you want, elect how often to receive them and in plain text or HTML, and they'll be delivered right to your inbox.

I have alerts set up to track my name, a few topics of interest, and a slew of client and acquaintance names. A lot of repeat stuff comes up, but I also get new-news: someone writing about me or some cool, email-worthy news about someone or something else.

You never know who's saying what about you—or when it'll come in handy...