I couldn't agree more. But it may take some time to be implemented, if ever... I do think this will be implemented sooner or later, though. Back when this question was asked, there was **no** email notification system whatsoever. Now, there is the [unified notification][1] on top of every SEN site **and** while it has no RSS it does send out *inbox only* notification emails (every 3 hours, as of today). So, other than having a stackexchange site open all the time, there is at least one other way to receive nearly instant notifications: Apps! In chrome, to me, this means [Stack Alert][2]. For mac, there's also [Newt][3]. [1]: https://blog.stackoverflow.com/2012/05/revamped-notifications/ [2]: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/stack-alert/bpficcollblmkmoofnbnfhibdhfolamm [3]: https://stackapps.com/questions/1993/newt-question-answer-and-comment-and-rep-change-notifications-for-mac-os-x