You give them a keyword, and from then on they maintain a constant feed of articles that mention that keyword accessible via RSS or the web. They offer two versions, one that tracks web sources and the other newsgroups.

If you don’t know what a newsgroup is, WikiPedia says “A newsgroup is a repository, usually within the Usenet system, for messages posted from many users at different locations. The term is somewhat confusing, because it is usually a discussion group. Newsgroups are technically distinct from, but functionally similar to, discussion forums on the World Wide Web.”

Internet newsgroups are interesting in a historical and present-day social context. The style of forum began in 1979 and steadily gained popularity. While the web has dwarfed Usenet, more than 20,000 groups remain active.

Newsgroups saw the beginning of spam on the Internet and drafted the first set of rules of online behavior. For instance, Godwin’s Law: “As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one.”

“There is a tradition in many Usenet newsgroups that once such a comparison is made in a thread the thread is over, and whoever mentioned the Nazis has automatically lost whatever argument was in progress.”

Also from Usenet, Troll: “1. A post (on a newsgroup, or other forum) thought to be intended to incite controversy or conflict or cause annoyance or offense or 2. A person who posts these.” Trolls are common on Slashdot as they are on any major discussion forum, and occasionally RFID News. They are exceptionally common when talking about RFID on Usenet, witness the PubSub feed.