Web Savvy: Save Time--Let the Web Surf for You

When I'm online, I constantly monitor several sites for fresh information, including news, auction listings, and stock updates. More often than not, I wait for a site to download and find nothing new. Seems like a waste of time, especially since I'm stuck at dial-up speeds until Comcast installs cable in my new home.

To deal with the switch back to a regular modem, I've changed my Web surfing habits by visiting sites that load faster. But now I'm also trying a radical approach: I'm letting someone else surf for me.

Several little-known sites aim to deliver your favorite Web destinations on a need-to-update basis. Recently I signed up for Spyonit, which lets you create a list of "spies" that visit Web sites for you and send you e-mail when they find something of interest. You can choose prefabricated spies or make your own by searching for a keyword or requesting updates when a Web page has changed. Right now I have spies watching for Lyle Lovett tour dates, Brooks Robinson memorabilia, and the latest version of The Onion, among other things.

Spyonit isn't perfect: Custom Web page updates are just once a day, so it's a poor choice for constantly changing news sites. But I do like having a list of auctions closing on EBay, Yahoo, and Amazon sent to me each morning.

Another site, Web2Mail.com, claims to do something pretty neat. If I send an e-mail message to www@web2mail.com that provides a URL in the subject line, Web2Mail will send me the Web page in HTML format. Or I can search the Web just by sending a message to the same address and typing a query like "search Tyrannosaurus" in the subject line. Sending e-mail queries is nice, but getting a response from Web2Mail can take hours --never just 5 minutes as the site claims --and sometimes it doesn't work at all.

Keep on the Alert

The beauty of services like these is that they help minimize the time I spend navigating the Web. And they're not alone. Many sites, PCWorld.com among them, offer their own alert services that tell you when something you're interested in happens online. CNN.com and others send breaking-news alerts, while sites like Bidalert.net update you on EBay auctions.

If possible, however, I'd like to launch my proxy Web surfing from as few locations as I can. That's why I like Yahoo Alerts, an index of e-mail alerts for everything from news and auctions to real estate and job listings. You can set up alerts to hit your in-box periodically or whenever new information is available. Yahoo does place ads in your e-mail, but the alerts cover a lot of ground and get their information from quality sources, like the Associated Press, the Sporting News, and CareerBuilder.

For now, Spyonit and Yahoo Alerts are my bases of operation for monitoring the Web without constantly surfing the Web. Spyonit gives me auction listings and site updates, while Yahoo Alerts sends me bulletins from its vast pool of information. I check my e-mail periodically, and if there's an alert that interests me, I go to the relevant site. Otherwise I simply log off and go about my day.