Help! Attack of the Googlezon News Alert!
Does anyone use the Google Alerts feature from within Google News? Over the past week or so I've been getting multiple copies of any alert I have running. I use the service to get news based on keywords sent to me, instead of going out and searching it. I keep scans going on words that are relevant to the Disability News Ticker that I maintain, along with other words on stuff like news from my hometown and when the group that my cousin is with is mentioned in music mags and sites. I also get notified when my website gets linked somewhere. It's a pretty good service, but I prefer to get one alert, not 10.

Speaking of Google, CBC's ZED program had a cool short film on their show last night. I'm not a regular watcher of the show (although after watching it, I may start to catch more). They explored the role of blogs, webcams and tv on-demand in an episode about New-New Media. There featured a short film about Google in the future, and what it might become. The "GoogleZon" will be a powerful monstrosity that rules "old"-media types like the New York Times and knows everything about your information gathering patterns (don't they already?) through EPIC - the 'Evolving Personalized Information Construct'. The film plays as a timeline of the important milestones in the web and then with Google, the narrator playing a futurist role to predict stories that could come from the empire that Google is building. It's interesting. Masternewmedia.org (a great site) has a summary of the film with all the narrative.. Take a look. There are some links at the bottom of the the summary where you can view the short. It's thought provoking and most like spot on with their predictions.