How to be notified about a post with X tag?

April 9, 2010 8:14 AM

How can I get notified when X topic comes up? For example, I'm interested in a Twin Cities meetup but don't log in every day. Is there a way to make a tag and get MeMail'ed or something when a keyword like Minneapolis or MeetUp is posted? Thanks.
posted by ShadePlant to MetaFilter Gatherings at 8:14 AM (21 comments total)

Your best bet right now is to subscribe to the meetup or Minneapolis tag in MetaTalk through something like Google Reader. Look for the orange feed icon for the URL. There are also services that will email new feed items, but I don't know them offhand.

And I'll just vaguely say that this will get better in the not too distant future.
posted by pb (staff) at 8:18 AM on April 9, 2010 [1 favorite]

Also helpful - make some friends with similar interests or who know your interests who log in more regularly. I occasionally get MeMails from mefites I know paging me and alerting me to something they think I have some interest in.
posted by greekphilosophy at 8:23 AM on April 9, 2010

feedmyinbox and feedmailer are two.
posted by Rhomboid at 8:47 AM on April 9, 2010

echo "wget http://www.metafilter.com | grep meetup" > crontab
posted by DU at 9:16 AM on April 9, 2010

pb: "And I'll just vaguely say that this will get better in the not too distant future."

Ooooh.... mysterious!
posted by Grither at 9:35 AM on April 9, 2010

Hey, just a random thing that my girlfriend was wondering about—is there a faster way to recommend posts (especially AskMe) to contacts? She saw something that one of our pals could help out with, but on her ipod touch it was a great big hassle to get it to him. Any hints?
posted by klangklangston at 9:40 AM on April 9, 2010

DU: "echo "wget http://www.metafilter.com | grep meetup" > crontab"

This is a good way to break crontab.
posted by Plutor at 9:43 AM on April 9, 2010 [4 favorites]

Wouldn't Yahoo Pipes be up to the task? Or a Google Alert?

I think you'd want "insite:metatalk.metafilter.com Twin Cities" for the Google Alert, but my Google Fu is weaker than most people's.

Or: Don't be a stranger! Embrace the hardcore taters and browse MeFi regularly! ONE OF US!
posted by mccarty.tim at 9:49 AM on April 9, 2010 [1 favorite]

Don't we have a tag-based RSS capability, so you can specifiy tags & when they come up the article gets added to your feed? And if we don't, can we? :)
posted by scalefree at 9:53 AM on April 9, 2010

And I'll just vaguely say that this will get better in the not too distant future.

What he means is that MetaFilter is moving to a paid subscription model.
posted by shakespeherian at 10:11 AM on April 9, 2010

And I'll just vaguely say that this will get better in the not too distant future.

What he means is that MetaFilter is moving to a paid subscription model.

Or anyone not reading MeTa every day, if not several times a day, will be....eliminated.
posted by DU at 10:46 AM on April 9, 2010

Or anyone not reading MeTa every day, if not several times a day, will be....eliminated.

I'm not imagining the future of MeTa:

Hi I noticed that there's a problem with my Recent Activity page, it looks like pony request threads are disappearing... pb can you help?

posted by shakespeherian

It looks like this problem has been.... dealt with.

posted by pb

(months later)

Hey has anyone heard from shakespeherian recently?

posted by DU

posted by shakespeherian at 10:57 AM on April 9, 2010

What he means is that MetaFilter is moving to a paid subscription model.

Well, not in the traditional sense. We're actually moving to a quota-based "push content" model.

Basically you won't be allowed to read the site on any given day until you provide video evidence of having physically pushed some minimum number of people on the street to the ground while shouting Metafilter-related information (cool posts, things that need deleting, meetup announcements) at their prone, cowering forms.

You'll also need to apply tar to their persons in order to help improve our "stickiness".
posted by cortex (staff) at 11:03 AM on April 9, 2010 [7 favorites]

That's a bold new paradigm for you.

WEB FIVE POINT OH
posted by klangklangston at 11:07 AM on April 9, 2010

Imagine a blue background stamping on a human face -- forever.
posted by Rhomboid at 11:18 AM on April 9, 2010 [4 favorites]

So, you need more eyeballs?

* gets melon baller and sack *
posted by yhbc at 11:19 AM on April 9, 2010 [1 favorite]

There's also an iCal feed, which can be useful if you use a calendar that supports it (like in OS X or Google's version). It's not filtered to just one city but it's pretty easy to take a quick look.
posted by smackfu at 11:33 AM on April 9, 2010

smackfu: There's also an iCal feed

With a link - the iCal feed.


DU: echo "wget http://www.metafilter.com | grep meetup" > crontab

Plutor: This is a good way to break crontab.

To be clear - you should use >> to append to the file instead of overwriting it.

/unixgeek
posted by Pronoiac at 11:57 AM on April 9, 2010

To be clear - you should use >> to append to the file instead of overwriting it.

A lesson I learned the hard way late one Friday night as I accidentally overwrote the password file on the webserver of a major Wall Street firm instead of appending my entry to it. Not one of my finer moments, it brought the whole site to its knees. But that's what "hold harmless" clauses in service contracts are for.
posted by scalefree at 3:08 PM on April 9, 2010

The best way to know when a meetup will happen is to plan it yourself... *wink wink*
posted by SemiSophos at 5:05 PM on April 9, 2010

That is quite stupid of Pipes. I don't love how the meetups are all specified as all-day, but it is part of the standard so changing it to midnight is just wrong.
posted by smackfu at 6:05 AM on June 7, 2010