A Google engineer has posted on the many sources of news and information that can be tracked using Google Reader (or any other RSS feed reader, for that matter.) The list ranges from classified ads of a particular type (say, apartments in Brookline under $1500 /month) to weather to finance and news reports, to saved searches.
The list is far from exhaustive, and I think more and more information, litigation-related and otherwise, is going to be "subscribable" like this list. For instance, in two minutes I just set up this search for Patent Litigation in the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts through Justia.com. The results page had this RSS feed result. This is close to a direct feed from PACER, the federal courts electronic filing information system.
For enterprises, it will be increasingly the case that RSS will be the method of sharing and keeping track of content. Because it is inherently flexible and allows for the addition of faceted information like tags and practice areas, it can be particularized to the internal needs of the firm. Sharepoint 2007 has taken advantage of this power by having RSS feeds available from any page, list, wiki, blog, or other content repository. Too bad the Sharepoint 2007 is completely inadequate.
I noticed today that the Google Reader in particular has a useful "Discover" feeds tool, located right next to the "Add subscription" button.
It apparently compares the types of content that I regularly follow and finds other feeds (mostly blogs) that match that same type of content. The number of Google Reader subscribers is listed so hopefully I can tell if a feed is completely bogus. I found KM leader Tom Davenport's blog that way, and I re-found contrarian and search consultant Stephen Arnold's blog, Beyond Search, which started in January 2008 without an RSS feed.
I recall hearing Stephen's entertaining and informative closing remarks at the 2007 Enterprise Search Summit in New York (just before I began to live-blog), and also posted on the Enterprise 2.0 discussion that Anrew McAfee and Tom Davenport had this past fall. I'm glad to find out another source of information on them. Thanks Google.
As a side note, like many people, I have saved searches for my own name feeding into a reader and also an email alert. It turns out there's another David Hobbie who works for the Army Corps of Engineers in Florida, and who I suspect has more control over the water levels in Florida's swamps than any other single individual in the country. There also is another one, a business student who works for Thomson Financial. Watch out world--me and my doppelgangers are taking over!
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