“Google Alert Loop” uses Google’s free “Blogger” software and “Google Alerts” to create a webblog that auto-publishes itself based on mentions of specific alert topics sent to the email address specified. The idea is to create a self-perpetuating blog that will publish repeatedly until it begins to publish its own mentions into a continuous cycle. The project attempts to question the utility of these automated systems such as “Google Alerts” and how they are being used to aggregate and polarize opinions across the Internet.
The Google Alert Loop system purposely uses only Google products to construct its own conundrum. When a new post shows up online about the specified topic, Google Alerts sends an email to the system. This email is then automatically posted on the weblog, resulting in another Google Alert which is sent to the same email address. Eventually this creates a “loop” that theoretically will never end unless the posts all end up the same and error checking is done to ensure that repetitive posts do not show up more than once.
