Integrated RSS

In an effort to upgrade our graphic design and layout skills, eight colleagues and I have undergone two days of InDesign training. One of the last things we learned had to do with a related Adobe application called "Bridge", a file management system that simplifies access to files used by programs belonging to Adobe's Creative Suite. Two days of training had given us more than a snapshot of InDesign's impressive page layout capabilities, but what really struck me was one of Bridge's features: an RSS aggregator built right into its interface (here's a screenshot).

By default, the aggregator in Bridge is loaded with two feeds from Adobe's "Design Center". However, the same aggregator could easily facilitate project management by displaying feeds from team blogs or news from a team's manager or organization. Our able trainer, Steve Gagnon, suggested that such a feed might be used to monitor the inventory of stock photo sites which use RSS feeds to advertise new photos added to their collections.