[clarissa] Google News Alerts on list?

[Donald Lancon]

As I've posted about a few times in the past, I have Google News Alerts
set up for myself for "melissa joan hart", "sabrina witch" (not
"teenage", since sometimes the word is hyphenated and sometimes not),
and "clarissa explains it all", so I can be notified of news articles
containing those words.

I was wondering what people thought about having those alerts sent
directly to this list so everyone can see them (currently I only post
here about the really, really important news items, like MJH being
pregnant again :).

The second two alerts (for Sabrina and Clarissa) obviously generate many
more "false positives" than the first one (i.e., articles containing
those words that don't pertain to the topic of this mailing list), but
the number is not unacceptably high, IMO.

For reference, here's how many such alerts I've gotten in the past month:

  MJH: 10 relevant alerts
  STTW: 11 relevant alerts
  CEIA: 4 relevant alerts

(The alerts are collected into daily e-mails, so those are counts of the
e-mails I've received, not individual article references.  BTW, I could
change the frequency to once a week, but that kind of defeats the idea
of them being "news".  I could also go the other way and choose "as it
happens" -- i.e., an e-mail for each individual article, as they are
found -- but that seems like overkill.)

All of the alerts have generated a handful of false positives -- less
than 5 per month for each, I'd say, but it's hard to tell since I
immediately delete those messages, so I have no record of how many I've
gotten.

The STTW article count has been higher than usual lately because of the
recent DVD release of STTW season 5.  And most of the recent MJH
articles are because of the fact that Braydon just turned 1.  Most of
the CEIA articles are simply mentions of the show in the context of
otherwise not very relevant articles, but occasionally it turns up an
article about what Mitchell Kriegman (CEIA creator) or Elizabeth Hess
(the mom in the show) are doing nowadays.

Here's an example of an alert as it would appear on the list (this is
from Mar 17th, BTW):

- - -

=== Google News Alert for: "melissa joan hart" ===
Leni Klum Gives Heidi a Squeeze
Celebrity Baby Blog - Forest Hills,NY,USA
Heidi is definitely No.1 Mum of the Year, closely followed by Melissa
Joan Hart!! Can’t Heidi afford a comb or brush for her boys? ...
<http://www.google.com/url?sa=X&q=http://celebrity-babies.com/2009/03/16/leni-klum-gives-heidi-a-squeeze/&ct=ga&cd=EuHR8vw9D6A&usg=AFQjCNHGYCbo2xty63ynEBe3r73YO1px5g>
See all stories on this topic:
<http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ncl=http://celebrity-babies.com/2009/03/16/leni-klum-gives-heidi-a-squeeze/>

DVD Reviews, March 16
EntertainmentToday.net - Los Angeles,CA,USA
... as a major cast member, but this fifth season of the hit Melissa
Joan Hart show is even more painful to suffer through than its earlier
incarnations. ...
<http://www.google.com/url?sa=X&q=http://www.entertainmenttoday.net/content/view/775/51/&ct=ga&cd=EuHR8vw9D6A&usg=AFQjCNHde2Hn8PobLoi-sSAmttESY2W52A>
See all stories on this topic:
<http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ncl=http://www.entertainmenttoday.net/content/view/775/51/>

Melissa Joan Hart & Family Walk The Dogs
TheInsider.com - San Francisco,CA,USA
Melissa Joan Hart and her husband Mark Wilkerson were seen with their
sons Mason, 3, and Braydon ‘Brady’, who just turned 1, and their dogs on
a walk in ...
<http://www.google.com/url?sa=X&q=http://www.theinsider.com/news/1845256_Melissa_Joan_Hart_Family_Walk_The_Dogs&ct=ga&cd=EuHR8vw9D6A&usg=AFQjCNFfvfO6GHsmlj6hMEGyTYG1R3PbSw>
See all stories on this topic:
<http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ncl=http://www.theinsider.com/news/1845256_Melissa_Joan_Hart_Family_Walk_The_Dogs>

This once a day Google Alert is brought to you by Google.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Remove this Google Alert:
http://www.google.com/alerts/remove?s=[CODE OMITTED]&hl=en&gl=us

Create another Google Alert:
http://www.google.com/alerts?hl=en&gl=us

Sign in to manage your alerts:
http://www.google.com/alerts/manage?hl=en&gl=us

- - -

Let me know if anyone objects.  I don't want to drive people away from
the list, obviously, but it seems to me that the occasional false
positives wouldn't outweigh the benefit to most list members of having
timely notices about stuff MJH is doing / what people are writing about
her.  And it might actually spur some conversation around here... :-)

 - dcljr