In a press release, Factiva and NewsGator Technologies announced today their agreement to “jointly release Enterprise RSS that will bring the first business RSS solution to corporate users around the world.” Aside from the usual pr hyperbole, it’s an exciting announcement, expanding Factiva’s current RSS feeds, which are still in beta. At the moment, all you can get from Factiva is RSS feeds from their “Editor’s Choices,” which are breaking industry news stories. The arrangement with NewsGator will expand that to individual track folders where specific searches are stored for electronic clipping and alerting purposes. Since tracking can only be done on Factiva if you’re a Factiva subscriber, these RSS feeds aren’t available to non-customers. Factiva sees this as a great opportunity to attract more subscribers from the NewsGator customers who may not have heard of Factiva. If you prefer an alternative RSS reader, you’re out of luck getting the Factiva alerts, although you can still have Editor’s Choices pushed to you.

Karin Borchert, Factiva’s Chief Product Officer, told me that the beta RSS feed of Editor’s Choices was implemented for market validation and that the incredibly positive feedback provided the energy and momentum for Factiva to go forward. Borchert didn’t close the door on other content delivery options Factiva might adopt in the future, although she did point out that e-mail delivery is still there and that sending information to PDAs is an important initiative.