Content on the web is constantly changing and while you can track changes in information manually, it’s often a time-consuming process to monitor the things you care about. Trackle, a personalized web and RSS feed tracker we wrote about earlier this year, is launching a “Trackle It” button that can be added to any site to help users track information instantly while surfing the web.
Trackle.com’s free web service provides real-time personalized RSS feeds for data such as the latest crime in a user’s neighborhood, fluctuating airline ticket prices, how much a user’s house value is down this week, updated job listings, sports scores and more. Now with the introduction of the Trackle button, the tracking service wants to let sites provide instant tracking options directly to consumers and hopes to allow users to “Trackle” an item or feed from anywhere on the web.
The button allows users to automatically sign up to receive notifications about personalized information, such as price drops, new content, messages about products, etc. via email or SMS directly from the site (instead of tracking the item from Trackle’s website, with the Trackle button, the consumer doesn’t have to be signed up to be a user on Trackle’s site). Trackle’s co-founder Pavan Nigam says that the Trackle button, which is sold to sites on a pay-per-action basis, can be incorporated into a site within an hour, using Trackle’s self serve API. He says that the button helps online marketers reach their audience with customized alerts that give users of a site a reason to return. The Trackle feature can be used to generate statistics about what’s most interesting to users. Currently, Trackle has several sites which are testing the beta version of this feature, including EveryTrail.com, Eurekaspot.com and KLDSoccer.com.
Trackle is also offering sites the option of using a Trackle widget, instead of the integration of a Trackle button. The Trackle widget is similar to the button feature and allows users to track any updated information, changes or fluctuations of any item on a site in a widget form. Site owners can choose from over 100 of Trackle’s tracking widgets, ranging from “Local Crime” and “Health” to “Weather.” For example, a ski-website might offer the “Trackle weather” widget to allow its readers to track local snow conditions. Widgets are continually updated and are ad-free.
Trackle is also trying to integrate social media into its tracking service by launching a Trackle Facebook app. The app, which currently can only track sports scores and events, allows you to create a “tracklet” for a team or type of event to be tracked, and then sends you feeds alerts to you within the application. The alerts also go into your News Feed and your friends can see and comment on your Trackle updates. Trackle says it also plans to develop a MySpace app.
As we noted in our original review of Trackle, the breadth and specificity of Trackle’s information is what differentiates the site from other RSS and product tracking applications like Google Alerts, Yotify and Notify.me (which also allows sites to embed a “notify” widget to track items). The introduction of the “Trackle” button is a useful idea, but in order for it to be widely adopted by a variety of users, it needs to be more viral. The “Trackle” button needs to be an option on eBay, or Kayak or Craigslist for it to become truly useful, which is an ambitious task. The integration with Facebook is definitely key and Trackle says that the site will also integrate with Twitter and other social media sites in the future.
check this guy out. http://twitter.com/hookk . Interesting concept. Documenting the launch and making of news site in real time. Pretty cool concept for a site.
Why don’t you find a new marketing tactic instead of trying to “hook” us into hookk? It will do you no good. Try something else.
Great Idea, big thumbs up
i think the same, is a great idea!!!
The concept is neat but they have a long way to go – I for one have found that their data isnt always accurate.
Of course, it will be a useful button. But, how far can we trackle things? How easy is the logging in process and where are things trackled/tracked? Looking forward to Trackle things
We’ve been working with monitoring tools for quite a while, and the biggest problem is the comparison with Google Alerts. To most people, Google is reality. If you miss a single result that Google Alerts has, then you are not delivering everything available. We decided to address that problem by building http://AlertRank.com, which is a Google Alerts add-on. Instead of replacing Google Alerts, we are making it better with a database, analysis and reporting system.
Widgets man, whod’a thunk?
good it works for me
Hi! We ShoppingNotes.com specialize in price alerts for products. Just go to http://www.shoppingnotes.com, enter the URLs you want to watch and your email address. Then we’ll start monitoring their prices for you and notify you when the prices change. Check it out!
A neat concept. Could we have trackles work for countries other than US?
They don’t list where they get the data that the feeds come from. And there is no reason to trust it. Its better to go to real sources and have them give you updates on information and on a middle man site.
I learned as much from the comments here as I did reading the article itself. Thanks for the info about alertranker.. that’s tight.
They have the beginnings of a great concept, but I think it still needs some work before I would want to jump in.
Anyone here ever try IngBoo? http://www.ingboo.com. It, too, is an information tracker with special publisher button. Unlike other information trackers, IngBoo displays your data on a Web page rather than cluttering up your email inbox. Works on mobile devices, too.
… this is an interesting idea. Let’s see where it goes
Apologies for the missing transparency in my earlier post. IngBoo is actually one of my clients at Weber Shandwick. I thought I had made that clear when I entered my email address, but it didn’t show up in the post. Won’t happen again.
yes it is great idea may it will work for me
An interesting idea! really super!
ya it is great!