Open Source Alerting Portlet

This is a post that somehow got stuck as a draft stub since last summer. So, after blowing the dust off....

Virginia Knight (Senior Technical Researcher, ILRT, University of Bristol) describes in an Ariadne article an open-source alerting portlet in an effort to investigate how five Resource Discovery Network (RDN) hubs might be turned into subject portals.

The alerting portlet that is being designed provides a means for delivering timely notification of update information of various kinds including details of new bibliographic records, new records to the IRC catalogues, news items, additional services such as events, call for papers reminders, etc. It notifies customers about new resources in their subject interest areas and to allow them to register those areas with the portlet software. An email message that notifies users of publications which match the keywords and data sources specified in the subscription.

I know I get way to much email and the last thing I need is more of it. I have unsubscribed to nearly all mailing lists due to in-box overflow. I don't know if I would subscribe to any new services that only provides email alerts.

What would be really cool is if an RSS feed which pulls in the customized alert information could be generated and subscribed to instead of an email. The portlet interface could then be used to tune the alert. Sphere: Related Content