Photo credit: Ronen
Monitoring Newsgroups/Usenet
Photo credit: Jake Levin
Google Groups is a free online community and discussion group service that offers the Web's most comprehensive archive of Usenet postings. Google Groups can be monitored using RSS feeds. In order to monitor a specific newsgroup simply add "/feed/msgs.xml" to the end of the Google Group URL. Add the new URL to a newsgroup reader and receive updates each time a new post is added to the newsgroup.
Example Feed from Google Groups.
Other online community-oriented and online group-collaboration services that fully support RSS include:
YahooGroups
http://www.yahoogroups.com/
SocialText
http://www.socialtext.net/
Near-Time
http://www.near-time.com/
Shared Calendars
Photo credit: Marja Flick-Buijs
Build a calendar for public or private use and receive calendar updates via an RSS feed. Shared calendars can be created for personal reminders to pay bills or attend social functions. Calendars can also be used for specific groups like schools, sporting events, or industry events. A shared calendar can be fully syndicated and shared using RSS feeds.
CalendarHub
http://www.calendarhub.com
Example Feed - http://www.calendarhub.com/rss/21882/month
RSS Calendar
http://www.rsscalendar.com/
Zimbra
http://www.zimbra.com/
Weather
Photo credit: Michael Shake
Enter a zip code and obtain the weather information for a specific region. Click the orange RSS icon and add the feed to your RSS reader. Each day, at your specified time, you will receive local and regional weather reports as they are made available. RSS feeds can be customized to include current local conditions, local Doppler radar, pollen trends, regional video forecasts with expert commentary, and extended forecast details.
Yahoo Weather
http://weather.yahoo.com/rss/
Weather.com
http://www.weather.com
RSS Weather
http://www.rssweather.com
Classifieds (Homes/Jobs)
Photo credit: Tan Kian Khoon
Curious about the availability of specific employment opportunities in a specific industry? Receive notification when positions are made available. RSS feeds can be created for regions, salary ranges, or positions.
Craigslist
http://www.craigslist.org/
Craigslist Example Feed
RSSJobs
http://www.rssjobs.com
CareerChannel
http://www.careermag.com/MKT/RSS/
Ego Searches
Photo credit: Gina Smith
An egosurfer is one who surfs the Internet for his own name, to see what, if any, articles appear about himself. Ego searches are free and simple searches designed to monitor blogs and news portals for mentions of your company, product, competitors, or other specific keywords. Conducting ego searches, not only allows you to stay informed, but also allows you to maintain a strategic advantage over competing companies. A number of new Internet services are freely available that make these 'ego searches' painless and easy.
Many of the services allow you to create a keyword based feed. Each time new information containing the keyword appears in the searched resources, the RSS feed updates.
Egosurf
http://www.egosurf.org/
Monitor This
http://uckan.info/depot/monitorthis/
Technorati Watchlist
http://www.technorati.com
More ego-searching tools.
Shipments Tracking
Receive notification via RSS feeds when packages are delivered. Custom RSS feeds can be created to monitor delivery progress. Track the status of packages shipped via US Postal Service, UPS, DHL or Federal Express.
Simple Tracking
http://www.simpletracking.com/
Track2RSS Project
http://track2rss.sf.net/
PackTrack
http://www.packtrack.com/
Hot Deals, Coupons and Specials
Photo credit: Sandals.com
Everyone loves a bargain, RSS feeds that promote time sensitive discounts or offers are becoming increasingly popular. Restaurants convey lunch specials while travel companies convey last minute deals to prospective travelers using RSS Feeds.
Coupons.com
http://www.coupons.com
DealNews
http://dealnews.com/rss.html
HotDealsClub
http://www.hotdealsclub.com/
Sample Restaurants Feed
Sample Travel Feed
Auction Monitoring
Photo credit: Levi Szekeres
Items on eBay or on other major online auction houses are time sensitive and few individuals have enough time to make daily auction checks of new auctions for specific products. Create an RSS feed using keywords to monitor products as they become available for auction.
Bidding Tools
http://www.freebiddingtools.com
Example Feeds
AuctionMonitor
http://www.auctionmonitor.net/
RSSauction
http://www.rssauction.com/
Price Watching
Photo credit: Kirsty Pargeter
Price watching enables you to track and monitor price changes on specific products and markets. Still in its infancy this market niche is certain to become in great demand soon.
RSStalker
http://www.rsstalker.com/
FuelWatch
http://www.fuelwatch.wa.gov.au/...
Podcasting and Podcatching
I wasn't going to even list this one, as it has caught on so rapidly that nobody wants to hear anymore what podcasting is, but then I gave in to list here after many not-too-obvious applications, as a reference for those who have not yet been exposed to this wildly popular and effective use of RSS. "Podcasting is the distribution of audio or video files, such as radio programs or music videos, over the Internet using either RSS or Atom syndication for listening on mobile devices and personal computers. The term podcast, like "radio", can mean both the content and the method of delivery. Podcasters' websites also may offer direct download of their files, but the subscription feed of automatically delivered new content is what distinguishes a podcast from a simple download or real-time streaming. Usually, the podcast features one type of "show" with new episodes either sporadically or at planned intervals such as daily, weekly, etc. In addition to this, there are podcast networks that feature multiple shows on the same feed."
(Source: Wikipedia)
Podcasting is all about allowing you and me to listen to our favourite audio and video programs wherever, whenever and on whichever device we want.
iTunes
http://www.apple.com/itunes/
Odeo
http://www.odeo.com/
ZiePod
http://www.ziepod.com/
FireAnt
http://fireant.tv/download
Video editing
Thanks to RSS grassroots collaborative video editing may soon become a reality for many. Kent Bye has been working at such an idea as well as the guys behind some of the hottest new online video editing sites that have recently launched. RSS is a key component in all these tools as it helps those working around a theme or a specific project to maintain themselves updated with new clips posted and available for them to work on.
Jumpcut
http://www.jumpcut.com/
Eyespot
http://www.eyespot.com/
Discover Your Friends Discoveries
Photo credit: Alex Bramwell
Delicious
http://del.icio.us/
Digg
htpp://www.digg.com/
Reddit
http://www.reddit.com/
Newsmastering
Photo credit: Jenny W.
Newsmastering is an emerging new application in which great numbers of RSS feeds, augmented by specific filters are mixed to create highly valuable thematic information feeds. These can be called radars or when covering news content newsradars.
MySyndicaat
http://www.mysyndicaat.com/
Newsgator
http://www.newsgator.com/hostedSolutions.aspx
Coming next:
Track conversations
CoComment
http://www.cocomment.com/
Social networking for music lovers
Find out via RSS what your friends are listening to, track new albums, songs and artists.
Mercora Radio 2.0
http://www.radio2-0.com/msearch/index2.jsp
Swarming
The term swarm (schooling or swarming) is applied to fish, birds and insects and describes a behavior of an aggregation () of animals of similar size and body orientation, generally cruising in the same direction (source: Wikipedia).
New online services are emerging that will allow small and large groups of people to remain in synch with each other even when not in close physical contact. These services will invariably employ SMS text messaging, email and RSS as their key channels of spreading communications in the fastest and most effective way to their interconnected groups.
Stay tuned.
X-events
X-events are a new and more effective way to run live events that will extend the event interaction to much before and after the actual event. Via the use of new media technologies including RSS, blogs, P2P, personal media aggregators, forums, wikis and other tools, the event organizers of the near future are in for banking lots of money if they understand that the name of the game is in the extended, interactive event in which the live event (online or not) is only but one of the many components and services offered.
EventMingle
http://www.eventmingle.com/
Video Search
Dabble
http://www.dabble.com/
Bug reporting
Version Tracker
http://www.versiontracker.com/faq/rss/
Crime Monitoring
Chicago Crime
http://www.chicagocrime.org/
RSS Mashups
Instant Messaging with RSS
What Happens When You Mashup RSS, IM, and Publishing Services?
BroadCatching
(RSS + P2P for automatically downloaded personalized TV watching)
How-To: BroadCatching using RSS + BitTorrent to automatically download TV shows
RSS is still very young.
Both publishers and consumers are actively seeking ways to take good advantage of this uniquely powerful content delivery technology and additional uses of RSS feeds are popping up daily.
RSS may soon become an invisible technology powering hundreds if not thousands of diverse applications and uses.
Where else do you think RSS is headed next?
Do you know of other RSS uses and applications that you would like others to know about?
Use the post a comment link at the end of this article to add your own.
More info:
Usage Study, RSS—Crossing into the Mainstream (Ipsos Insight/Yahoo!) PDF
About the Authors:
Sharon Housley manages marketing for FeedForAll software for creating, editing, publishing RSS feeds and podcasts. In addition Sharon manages marketing for NotePage a wireless text messaging software company.
Robin Good is the executive editor of MasterNewMedia, MasterViews and Kolabora. His expertise and interests span from information and interface design to online collaboration technologies, new uses and applications of new media and a vision for empowering the individual to use communication to change.
