It's out in the open now, I'm admitting it, I am an information junkie.  I love information, always searching, always listening, bombarded by media, advertising, news, social media, new people, new ideas, it goes on and on.  I soak it up, share it, save it, reference it, one big storehouse of information.

About a year ago I discovered Google Alerts - http://www.google.com/alerts  This is one of the services provided by Google, and it's free to use.  You don't have to get the free gmail account to use as a Google-ID, but it's worth doing, since that ID can be used for many of Google's services.  By setting up an alert by name, topic, industry or other search term, Google keeps tabs on its information sources (Google Blogs, Google News, etc.) and returns entries to you about your search terms, what you want to be alerted about.  Google sends you an email by alert, or daily alerts, to let you know that something has been found.  Having that Google-ID helps, because you can keep a running list of which alterts you have, and the frequency that each altert get delivered to you.

Today I found out about Posterous - http://www.posterous.com  which is an aggregator service.  You can post to Posterous and propagate that post throughout the Social Media world, to other blogs and social networks. I've set up Google Alerts to follow several people in the Social Media Community which keeps me abreast of the latest trends, services, and observations,  My friend and Internet Marketing champion, Erin Blaskie - http://www.lifestreamincolor.com and owner of BSETC (Business Services, Etc.) - http://www.bsetc.ca is using Posterous to subscribe to several blogs and delivers those posts in a central way at her lifestreamincolor site. 

One important take-away for you to use is to set up a Google Alert on your name and your company's name.  This way you can see how your name is "turning up" over the Internet, who's talking about you, and who's referencing your company.  Great for market research and seeing how your message is coming across to your community.

Some example alerts I have set up are people:  Michael Port, Mari Smith, MaryPat Kavanagh, Erin Blaskie in the Marketing and Social Media area.  Some of the topics I look for are: Think Big Revolution, Social Media, Social Media and Coaching, Marketing to Marketers, and Small Business Marketing.  I manage my alerts in one big list (having that Google-ID give me this), and have all the alerts scheduled once a day to cut down on email.  You can have a maximum of 100 Alerts set up this way.

My advice - start using Google Alerts as soon as possible to assist with your research, and have a Posterous - http://www.posterous.com day!