Google Scholar has come up with an interesting new way to keep track of citations to your work. And by doing that, indirectly keep up to date with new publications in your niche.
Here's my link as an example.
As we approach the REF2014, I imagine that measures of articles like citation numbers, and the impact factor of the journals where we publish our work will be taken into account, although it's not clear which metrics will be used.
Cambridge University is using Symplectic to collate REF returns for each scientist.
A recent addition this area is the collation of social media activity relating to publications, including Facebook, twitter and blog mentions. These are pulled from Altmetric.
As a proponent of social media and science, I like where this is heading. The 'traditional' channels for discussion of scientific research are being used less often than before (letters the the editor anyone?), and and tweets, retweets and buzz around conference presentation are on the rise.