ReadWriteWeb

RSS feeds have become the backbone of the Web 2.0 movement, but as we are moving towards a real-time experience on the web, RSS is starting to show its age. To update your subscriptions, you have to regularly poll these feeds. This, of course, is a major problem for RSS readers and notification services which often have to deal with a substantial lag before new posts and messages appear. The newest service that tries to tackle this problem is Notifixious, but as Notifixious founder Julien Genestoux explains, a lot of problems still need to be fixed before ubiquitous real-time notifications can become a reality.

From branchnext, the same company that delivered the personal web scout service Yotify (our coverage), there comes a new B2B alerts service called LetMeKnow. As with Yotify, LetMeKnow lets you track any number of changes that happen on the web - from price changes to new blog posts or comments and much more. However, unlike Yotify's consumer-facing service, LetMeKnow is designed for use by web publishers instead.

A new personal web scout called Yotify just launched into public beta today. This service lets you track anything on the internet and only reports back when it has results for you to review. Your Yotify "scouts," as the searches are called, can be shared with others via email, Facebook, FriendFeed, or even directly with the other Yotify members you befriend on the site. But don't worry, this isn't yet another social network designed to waste more of your time. Instead, it's just the opposite: Yotify utilizes the power of the social web to save you time and give you your life back...you know, the one away from the computer?

After the DEMO presentations yesterday, a lot of people were discussing favorites sites and services from the day's sessions. Based on buzz alone, one of the more popular applications appears to be the new service Alerts.com. With this service, instead of visiting multiple sites to stay up-to-date with the latest news and and information, you can have the news come to you. You can configure alerts that are relevant to your interests and then have them arrive in the method you choose: SMS, voice, email, IM, or on your desktop via an Adobe Air app.