Blog monitoring: Pay or DIY options

I received a press release on Wednesday announcing BlogSquirrel, "a new service that enables businesses to monitor efficiently the contents of over 100,000 blogs," it says.

While I admire the way in which CyberAlert, the provider, has spotted an apparent market gap and developed a service that lets you search, monitor and clip blog content of specific interest to you, I wonder who would actually buy such a service when the tools are already there that enable you to do such things yourself with little effort.

Not only that, they're free, compared to the $195 monthly fee CyberAlert is asking for BlogSquirrel. And as far as I can tell, you get your BlogSquirrel results only by email with no other delivery choices (eg, online or via RSS).

I really don't see BlogSquirrel''s USP. Take a look at a do-it-yourself alternative.

Fredrik Wacka at CorporateBloggingInfo has succinctly highlighted a simple DIY guide, with examples, to searching, monitoring and clipping:

1. Find the keywords you want to monitor.
2. Get started with an RSS reader.
3. Subscribe to searches.
4. Watch the results drop in.

It works.