I've been running HN alerts via Zapier (my startup) + a webhook polling trigger with a URL like http://api.thriftdb.com/api.hnsearch.com/items/_search?&q=yo... (which is of course hnsearch.com's API). You can get them delivered via SMS/Twilio, IM/Gtalk/Jabber or plain jane email.
It's super simple to write your own. Periodically check
https://news.ycombinator.com/newcomments
and when a new comment appears, get the parent's author and send a notification.
I've been running HN alerts via Zapier (my startup) + a webhook polling trigger with a URL like http://api.thriftdb.com/api.hnsearch.com/items/_search?&q=yo... (which is of course hnsearch.com's API). You can get them delivered via SMS/Twilio, IM/Gtalk/Jabber or plain jane email.