That’s a great question!
It does come complete with RSS integration so you might be able to do something with a suitable RSS reading app, but other than that I’m afraid it currently does not send email or IM alerts (great idea though – feel free to suggest it 🙂 ).
With that said, our plugins are nothing if not customizable so it would certainly be achievable to build something like this.
I hope that answers your question, but let me know if I can help with anything else.