Recently Robert Scoble announced that his blog would send a MSN Alert with every post. Quite a while ago I signed up to Scoble's alerts, wanting to be in the loop if he had something important to say. When I first read I didn't think too much about it, until a few days into the change when I happened to spend some time away from my computer a heavy posting day.
My default config is to have these Alerts sent to my cell phone if I am not logged to MSN Messenger. Now for some folks at Microsoft, it might be worth a note simply to know that they posted this month, but that's not the case with Robert. It's a farley safe bet that everyday (or so) will result in a series of posts.
It was easy enough for me to set my Scoble Alerts not to be sent to my cell phone if I'm not logged in, but does that defeat the purpose? I think it would be great to know if Robert posted something he felt was important, significant, or just otherwise cool. So now I do not get the alerts sent to my phone, but if there's something worth alerting me, it won't any longer. Personally I preferred it the old way when an alert was something important, not just a post. My feed reading software alerts me when there are new posts, so i really don't see the point of using alerts simply for a new message, but that's just my opinion.