Online Free News Clipping Service

Every now and then I find an application I tell people about, like Skype!, the latest is from those Google people. I admit, I like them, I use their Blogger, GMail (2GB free email!) and I have to love the search engine. My latest favorite online application is Google News - news.google.com.

Google News comes in two parts as far as I am concerned.

First, there are the headlines and news search. These alone are fantastic and make a great browser home page. What is in the news? Search for your home town, your company name, your favorite actor. You get latest news, entirely different results from Google web search which works on far more static pages.

Second, when you have refined your search you can automatically stay current by email. At the bottom of the page of News results is a link to add your search terms to Google Alerts. Follow the link, enter your email address, and you will get an email (up to once daily) when your topic of interest appears in the news. You don't get more than one email a day (e.g. Michael Jackson won't flood your InBox), and if your interest is obscure (like my home town of Ballina) you'll get a lot less. You can have lots of these alerts.

It is basically a free news clipping and tracking service, never seen anything like it for keeping current on any topic.

I forgot to mention Google Desktop Search. Google search your own PC for words or phrases in any file or email message, get instant (sub-second) results. I can no longer live without it. I hope they don't become evil and take over the world.