Many will be familiar with the process of registering with websites and organisations to receive an email newsletter from them. This process is increasingly fraught with problems as anti-spam measures develop, blocking mass-mailed emails, blocking images, or blocking emails from senders you have not yet approved. RSS is a technology that presents another way to get yoiur daily news feed.
RSS has a couple of competing definitions, but perhaps Really Simple Syndication is a good one. In essence, you use appropriate software (an RSS reader) or an extension to existing software (eg. your email application) to build up a list of RSS “feeds” from websites. These feeds are simply links back to a website, and they automatically update at an appropriate frequency depending on the subject matter and your choice (eg. hourly, daily) – they only show the headlines, and if you want to read more you simply click on the headline and the webpage opens up to display the full article or newsletter.
RSS feeds are quick and easy for website operators to setup, and you can even have one website displaying the RSS feeds of another website (say, top financial headlines from a news website being displayed on an investments website). No need to manage large mailing lists, no need to risk being seen as a spammer, no need to worry about securely storing all the email addresses and other personal information.
RSS feeds are quick and easy for end users too. Simply copy the link and paste it into your RSS-compatible software (eg. the free Thunderbird email package has built-in RSS capability, and Yahoo! online email can do it too) and you're away. Top health headlines? Top news headlines? What's happening in the world of gnomes? All available at a glance, and you simply click on the headlines of interest to see it in full.
The benefits are a reduction in your email Inbox, less chance of your email address getting abused, and you only read the items you want to. You can scan a lot more quickly across headlines from RSS feeds than you can download and read through individual email newsletters, saving you time.
If you want to experiment with RSS, try reader.google.com (who else?). But bear in mind, there are full-scale and free RSS readers available for download, or you can use many popular email applications and services. Look for “rss” on your favourite websites, there is a good chance that they provide an RSS feed – if they do not, ask them to! And if you are stuck for RSS feed suggestions, try rssfeeds.com (where else?) and take your pick of over 85,000 feeds.
RSS has some industry pundits raving about its potential to revolutionise the way organisations keep in touch with their customers and communities. It is easy to see why, so try it for yourself.
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- Tony Phelps is part of the Merlin Pacific IT team, dedicated to effective & efficient business IT (see www.merlinpacific.net).
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