What are the coolest uses for RSS feeds out there?

February 14, 2005 12:27 PM

I've finally started to "get" RSS feeds and I'm now reading a lot of stuff through an aggregator. What are the coolest uses for RSS feeds out there? I'm looking for information that isn't just "newest posts" on a blog, or NYT headlines, but something more along the lines of rssweather.com or Netflix's RSS feeds. What are the most outside-the-box uses of syndication?
posted by Plutor to computers & internet (11 comments total)

Let's see..

(these go to pages about the RSS feeds, rather than the RSS feeds themselves..)
Recent Earthquakes by RSS
UPS Package Tracking RSS
Subscribing to del.icio.us tags (and the popular links page).
Also, Flickr tags
Subscribing to craigslist searches for stuff I want
Watching Safari for newly available titles
Finding torrents
posted by Laen at 1:19 PM on February 14, 2005

Tim Bray has suggested that feeds for your credit cards and bank accounts would be cool, but I don't know of anyone that offers them.

On a topic closer to home, I made a feed for people to watch the progress of my weight loss [Self Link]. Helps keep the peer pressure up when I know people always have access to my current weight.
posted by mmascolino at 1:24 PM on February 14, 2005

There is a website called GovTrack.Us which lets you track legislation (including your representatives' and senators' speeches and votes) via RSS -- I've been very happily using it for about two weeks now and have been very impressed with it.
posted by WCityMike at 1:38 PM on February 14, 2005

Yahoo! News provides RSS feeds for search results, so you can get a customized news feed. The web search provides RSS feeds to and I just noticed it provides links to RSS feeds for sites in the results that provide them (example). I think Yahoo just won me back from Google...

If you play Halo 2, you can get your stats via RSS.

You can find out how many stars you have potentially influenced with the Light cone.

You can watch XHTML validation so you'll know when an update makes your site invalid.

Indeed.com provides an RSS feed of job search results from lots of sites (all the big ones and some small ones too) so you can see when new jobs are available in your field.

mmascolino - Re: Tim Bray's call, it seems like a QIF to RSS converter would work.
posted by revgeorge at 1:40 PM on February 14, 2005

You can watch eBay search results

Futuremail can post reminders whenever you want it to.
posted by revgeorge at 1:46 PM on February 14, 2005

This collides with the previous post, but del.icio.us offers an RSS feed for nearly everything: users, tags, your inbox, the popular page, etc.

Deliciousing (is there a better word for this?) a link and letting it show up in a friend's RSS reader has replaced trading links on IM all day.
posted by patgas at 2:07 PM on February 14, 2005

I've got to plug Library Elf, which allows you to track when your books are due, holds coming in, etc via RSS, email, or SMS.
posted by easyasy3k at 2:21 PM on February 14, 2005

Also, you can read Da Vinci's notebooks via RSS (one page a day for about four years).
posted by elvolio at 4:33 PM on February 14, 2005

Audioscrobbler outputs RSS feeds of the last few songs I've listened to.

Additionally, Gallery outputs RSS feeds of recent additions to my photo gallery.
posted by pwb503 at 8:01 PM on February 14, 2005

I use rssauction.com to fetch auctions of funny posters and tshirts from ebay mainly to amuse myself.
posted by timyang at 5:57 PM on February 15, 2005

Aside from scanning posts from favourite authors and bloggerss, I enjoy RSS feeds for Mp3 blogs such as music for robots ... nice to have keen ears constantly suggest new clickable songs to listen to, and even some renowned musicians such as DJ rupture - a current grainy fave of mine, are starting to offer feeds and files this way.

Want RSS feeds for video files? Try blogtelevision, videoblogging, and feedster... though there's stacks more out there...

Another thing I like about RSS feeds, is that you can easily share your entire feed by swapping the usually quite small ( 12-20-40k?) OPML file which contains all of your feedlinks. I've seen a few site authors offer their OPML files on their site - such as Philip Torrone of FlashEnabled. ( Have to get around to posting mine up too... )
posted by jeanpoole at 3:53 PM on February 16, 2005