I started using the Filtrbox online monitoring service after reading Aliza’s great review from last year. Like her, I was intrigued by the promise of more easily managing the sheer volume of information I was wading through.
Since then, I have come to rely on the Daily Briefing email they send me. It outlines my results without me needing to visit the web site. While this “set it and forget it” system was providing good value for me, I knew I was missing out on a lot of the flexibility and power of the service.
So, prompted by the recent upgrade to what Filtrbox is calling the “G2″ release, I decided to revisit the site and see what else it could do for me.
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Monitoring the Internet for people discussing your product or brand can be invaluable to help understand how the public views you. Tools like Google Alerts or Filtrbox can handle news, blogs and web pages while Summize keeps tabs on Twitter. For forums and message boards there is Twing.
The last time we looked at Twing, Mike found the forum friendly search engine to be a useful tool in the search arsenal, particularly for finding help from others who may be experiencing similar issues. A recent Twing update now adds functionality to make this process even easier for those looking to monitor forum discussions for their brands or products.
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I hate learning curves. I hate having to futz and fiddle with my apps to figure them out. I want the functionality to be intuitive, and if it is not, I throw up my hands and move on to something else. I attribute this impatience to information overload and don’t want to have to use a crowbar to insert complex instructions for an app into my brain when it is supposed to make my life easier.
That said, I am so glad that I took the time to seek out a demo of Filtrbox. As someone who is a major consumer of information from the Web as part of my Web work, Filtrbox is going to be my new best friend. Initially, I misunderstood its purpose and saw it as another feed reader. But with some hand-holding from the company, I realize that their term “media monitor” truly is a better fit. And I’d add “little miracle worker” and “fire hose diffuser” to the description.
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Web Work 101: How To Escape The Cubicle
