Trackle Promises to Organize Searches, Send You Updates

By Jim Bray
August 1, 2009

Have you ever missed getting that important score from the Big Game, or had your own big game rained out because you didn't get the weather forecast in time?

Trackle promises to change all that – at least as much as can be guaranteed in a world in which Murphy's Law has yet to be repealed. And the folks behind this web-based application promise more than that, too, including online tracking of stocks with – assuming the "tracklet" has the functionality – insider trading info that could make you savvy enough to be appointed as financial czar in the Obama administration.

Unfortunately, none of the stocks I set it to track included the insider information feature, which just figures.

Trackle.com bills itself as a service that tracks all of your personalized information on the Web, all in one place. And while that may sound as an invitation to indentify theft – or at least a way for you to leave digital footprints all over the world wide web, the company says the service is not only free, but secure and "privacy compliant".  

Their press release claims Trackle is built with advanced algorithms that "provide a layer of intelligence to the tracking process - ensuring timely and relevant results." Trackle users get notified automatically over the Web, email or SMS whenever Trackle finds a match for the parameters you've set up.

You can set it up for instant notification or daily roundup, much like you can do with Google Alerts. In fact, you could look on the service as a kind of Google Alerts on steroids.

“Trackle enables users to stay constantly updated on the things that matter most to them, without having to visit multiple web sites,” according to Trackle founder and CEO Pavan Nigam. Trackle's many categories are designed to help people track exactly what interests them and the company says it's expanding users’ search options continuously. New tracklets allow users to follow: bills in Congress, trending topics in Twitter, golfers’ hole-by-hole performances, social network statuses and new video game and movie releases.

There's also job tracking, monitoring the value of your home, "daily tidbits" (celebrity birthdays, gossip), "words of comfort and wisdom", swine flu information, sex offenders in your area – even a Harry Potter tracklet.

As far as tracking sports scores, standings, and the like are concerned, you can choose from a number of them including Major League Baseball, the NFL, NBA, NHL and a couple of NCAA entries. Alas, I don't track any of these myself, so had to set the service up to send me updates on the Toronto Blue Jays – not that I live in Toronto or care about baseball but I figured that perhaps if an asteroid hit Toronto during a Jays game I'd receive the good news quickly, assuming that whoever sends the info to Trackle managed to escape being turned to dust.

The next thing I knew, my inbox was being filled with updates on the Jays versus the Mariners – some 23 in all, every time there was a change of score, change of lead or a new inning. Nothing about asteroids, though.

The updates got to be a little much, in my never humble opinion. A better solution would be to stream the game onto your cellphone or notebook computer, but I can see why the Internet-and-radio-challenged could find Trackle's service handy, especially if you have money riding on the game.

The service is very U.S.-centric, which is undoubtedly why I can't track the Canadian Football League or check out airline flights from my Canadian base, so many Trackle services were useless to me, but that still leaves some 300 million potential customers who could take advantage of it. Maybe they'll make it work in other countries as the service grows, in a kind of "Trackle down theory…."

It did let me set up a Tracklet to monitor the status of my novel on Amazon.com, and I found out that, much to my chagrin, it isn't sold out.

Trackle says you can track anything you want and personalize it by name, location and keyword and the site apparently sends you notification whenever Trackle is updated with something new in the searches you've selected. And a new wrinkle is that you can now use your favorite RSS reader to view alerts.

Trackle sent me an email at day's end with a link taking me to a page on their site that gave me an overview of the action on my tracklets. It was kind of cool and I can see why some might find the service attractive. I think I'd get bored with it quickly, but that's just curmudgeonly old me.

Trackle, not to be confused with treacle, is also announcing new "solution pages" which it says are recommended searches grouped together by topic for your convenience. The site has also added "topical searches to coincide with the popular headlines of the day. These additions now make it even easier for users to stay updated on the things that interest them."

So if you want to track Obamacare, for example, Trackle has a tracklet for just that purpose and it claims it'll let you peruse the information from the left, right, or center which, if true, makes it more balanced than most of the so-called mainstream news media.

Trackle's PR material also says that, unlike services such as Google Alerts, Trackle doesn’t just search for keywords. Instead, "It incorporates change into the keywords and provides real-time alerts on the subjects you choose." This includes such stuff as "game and console release dates, product recalls, news and reviews from the experts,  weather alerts in your area, the latest neighborhood crime, sports scores, and much more."

An example cited would be if you're looking to buy a new PSP on sale at Amazon.com, but don't want to spend more than $145, you can get Trackle to monitor the site and let you know when the price reaches $145.

I can see where this could be handy.

Copyright 2009 Jim Bray
TechnoFile.com