RSS as pro-active research?

We know that RSS can be quite practical in terms of getting the latest posts from one’s favorite blog and news. But what about one step further. I think we have all done it. But Annie’s post,Use RSS Feeds To Keep Tabs On Industry News And Trends, at Teich Group talked about the advantages of using RSS for companies (and individuals) to keep aware of developments in an industry and find out what a competitor is up to.

And Annie is correct the information is out there or at least online and one just has to collect it. And most of it can be delivered by RSS and web feeds.

There are several sources of informations for a particular industry. For example -

Subscribing, aggregating and filtering the feeds through a feed reader or by mashup application is something that is not only doable but done on a regular basis by most RSS users. It is effective, time efficient and cost effective, as long as the source of the feed, whether it be blog or website, is reliable. Then it boils down to the credibiliity of the blog or the website.

An RSS or Web feed review would be invaluable.