RSS everywhere

The first and most common application of RSS is publication feeds -- blogs, news services, etc. However, an RSS feed can be established for any event. For example, one could notify subscribers when:

a record is added to a database
an image is added to a shared collection
the results of a database query change
a customer visits a certain FAQ page on the company Web site
the company name is mentioned on a specified news sites
a customer service representative who is currently in a zip code near you requests a part they need to complete a job
someone in your organization sends an email with your name in it

Note that programs as well as people can subscribe to RSS feeds. For example, a program could get a feed whenever an image is added to a shared collection, and, at the end of the day, it could send an email to the art director stating how many images had been added and what their URLs were.

Some people feel this sort of event-driven application architecture will be very important in the future. You can listen to this interview of an RSS proponent if you think that is an interesting idea.

Can you come up with a concrete example of how an RSS feed might be used?

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