What is an RSS feed?

RSS also known as Rich Site Summary or Simple Real Post emerged several years ago, but has only recently been adopted by webmasters as a way to effectively post content. RSS feeds give webmasters and content providers a means to present short summaries to potential readers. Thousands of websites and business blogs now publish content summaries in their RSS feeds. Each item in the feed usually has a title; Article summary and reference to the online article.

Site admin benefits:

As the web has become increasingly crowded, webmasters have endeavoured to provide fresh and updated content to their website visitors. Many webmasters have found that they can easily use the information in RSS feeds to provide new web content.

RSS feeds are composed in XML, a very simple markup language. Similar to HTML, XML uses tags to identify fields. Webmasters can easily analyse RSS feeds and dynamically create web pages with titles and summaries. The feed will be constantly updated, providing an automatically generated stream of new content.

RSS allows webmasters to:

1. Provide fresh and relevant content on their website, which encourages users to return.
2. Constantly changing content means search engine spiders will visit it more often.
3. Automates content delivery.

The benefits of RSS feeds are not limited to webmasters, internet surfers also benefit from the technology.

Benefits for web surfers:

The beauty of RSS is that readers can quickly scan headlines and read articles that interest them. Since information is condensed and presented in one place, users can generally review more information in a shorter time frame. Additional information is just a click away. The best readers choose the feeds they want to see, and there is no spam with RSS. If you are not completely enthusiastic about the content that appears in the feed, just remove it from your news reader. This technology is a pull technology and not a push technology, meaning that content is not forced on the consumer who pulls the content he wants to see.

RSS allows users to:

1. Search for information easily.
2. Read summarised information or “audio clips” with objective material that is clearly dated.
3. Categorise and categorise information in a way that is easy to navigate.
4. Maximise their time without having to deal with spam.

RSS feeds can be viewed in aggregators or news readers, which continuously update and display unread feeds. I have found that newsreaders function like simple email clients. Consumers generally enter the URL of any RSS feed that interests them. Topics with common themes can be separated into related groups.

FeedDemon is very easy to use and allows quick scanning and indexing of topics. FeedDemon allows users to quickly scan, sort and scroll through headline and article summaries, while viewing the actual content in a split-screen web browser.

Search for specific topics related to the topic

To find feeds that provide specialised information, users can search Feedster. This is a rapidly growing news search engine that indexes information in RSS feeds. Searches can be done for topic-specific feeds and feeds can be retrieved for sharing.

Utilise content developers

While the benefits for users and webmasters are clear, the distribution opportunities available to content developers should not be overlooked. Information in RSS feeds can be easily shared, increasing content distribution and access.

RSS allows content developers to:

1. Increase exposure in niche markets.
2. Communicate with the user base and reach potential customers through alternative communication methods.
3. Post relevant information.
4. Defining themselves as industry experts.
5. Automating content delivery.

RSS has effectively standardised the content delivery format and has effectively set an acceptable standard for content distribution and sharing. RSS is likely to rival email as a means of content distribution in a few more years. The simplicity of the piece makes this technology very attractive.

Although its distribution potential is difficult to quantify, it remains attractive to all parties which makes the prospect of RSS only continue to grow in popularity.