Facebook recently added alerts and other changes to the Pages Interface in fact I have a video and post about it Facebook makes big changes to Pages Interface. This will be handy for people who don’t want to bother setting up a Hyperalert but there are 7 reasons you should still use Hyperalerts for Facebook Page notifications (5-7 were added on 2/13, read on to see why):
- You can use Hyper Alerts with ANY page (not just those you admin)
- You can sign up from ANY Email address (even one that forwards to multiple recipients)
- You can receive your own content (imagine if you have multiple admins)
- You can control WHEN you receive the updates.
- The quality of the hyper alert emails is excellent, complete with comments so you get the context.
- Hyper Alerts provides a dashboard to manage your alerts (and add more, etc)
- Hyper Alerts provides a record of all alerts in your Email folders (Mari Smith mentioned this in her post)
So don’t go and delete your Hyper Alerts just yet, it’s still the best tool for the job. If you want to learn more about Hyper Alerts check out my recent post Monitor any Facebook Page for Posts, Comments and Content.
Here is a sample of what the Facebook option looks like:
Here are the superior Hyper Alerts options:
So what do you think, will you still use Hyperalerts for Facebook Pages or is Facebook alerts enough for you?
Update 2/11/2011: a Skype chat with Are Sundnes of Hyper Interaktive
I wrote the above post on 2/10/2011 and scheduled it for 2/14 before receiving an Email from Hyper Alerts detailing why they feel Hyper Alerts is still a better option. After receiving the Email I did a minor investigation to see if I could find someone at the company to chat with. I went to their site and it was in Norwegian, but I did recognize “Kontakt” so I clicked through and found an Email address. After sending an Email I got a Skype connection from Are (pronounced Ari) Sundnes. Within minutes (and being the wee hours of the morning his time) Are agreed to chat with me about Hyperalerts.
More about Hyper Interaktiv developers of Hyper Alerts
Are Sundnes is a concept designer and programmer for Hyper Interaktiv. His company does creative advertising and development. They have 24 employees and as a small company many of them multi-task. Are is just one of those people, you see while being a digital artist by trade he actually programmed the Hyper Alerts system mostly by himself in response to needs they some of their clients had. It would be just our luck as I am very impressed with what they’ve done and I suspect there will be more to come in the future. Are would not give me any specifics but he did tell me they have lots of plans for Hyper Alerts and that they are in the process of prioritizing them. I also learned that the proliferation of their Hyper Alerts service has been completely organic. They have done zero marketing in fact due to the strong response they are working on a English language version of their website as you are reading this.
Thanks for sharing this Joe! I used one called Page Notifier for a little while, but the free version only emailed once a day. Now I have the Facebook emails turned on, but I like the idea of emailing a group of users, and setting up alerts for other pages. Time to check it out now!
@JennaLanger I think you will be very pleased with Hyper Alerts. It really does kick some butt. 🙂
I love love LOVE Hyper Alerts. Facebook is going to have to work very hard if they want to come up with something that’s a better alternative… but they probably don’t care, do they? :p
@Shonali they (Facebook) don’t really care I bet. They have to a degree embraced the application developer eco-system. I wonder if they will continue on that path?
Thanks for your comment Shonali, it is always a pleasure to converse with you 🙂
@hackmanj Well, Facebook is a bit of a mystery, isn’t it?! I suspect that part of their makeup will not change.
@Shonali that and their lack of concern over privacy, it will always be a struggle.
Hey Joe,
I’m a bit late to the party I know :).
I’ve been using HyperAlerts for a few weeks now and I must say that I’m a fan. I was also quite impressed with the email they sent out when FB launched their own notification serice for groups – they mentioned a few reasons why they weren’t planning on going out of business and why we should stick with them – and I did!
I think the greatest advantage – to me at least – is the fact that you get notified about other people’s pages that you’ve left a comment on as well. That’s something FB doesn’t do – yet.
Yes – FB may be faster in alerting us but what the heck – I’m still giving them credit for beating FB to it. I actaully can’t believe it took FB this long to get in this game – but like you all said – do they care? I mean they’ve done quite a bit already 🙂 haha
Thanks for sharing this Joe and for following through with HyperAlerts and Kontakting them 😉 – I think there’s great potential there for a system like theirs. Tons of other things to tap into.
Have a wonderful week.
Cheers
@Griddy
Hi Ingrid, how great to see your comment here. I just read your article on Danny Brown’s blog earlier this morning and you are spot on. 🙂
Thanks for dropping in and leaving your comment, it is always appreciated.
Have a nice weekend,
Joe