JuliannaWhat are all those RSS and XML logos about? They’re popping up all over the Net.
XML stands for Extensible Markup Language, which lets Web publishers describe information in a format that machines can read. That means programs can be written to look for and use those descriptions. One of the capabilities XML permits is RSS, or Really Simple Syndication. RSS is the most popular and functional version of an idea that has been tried on the Web since at least 1998, a way to provide subscribers with automatically-updated bookmarks from a site. While ordinary browser bookmarks mark the location of a specific page, RSS bookmarks change dynamically to reflect new content – it’s like a news ticker feature.
Let’s pretend for a moment that you’re on a site like the New York Times. You could bookmark a specific article. You could bookmark the front cover page or a section such as technology (the location stays the same, but the articles change regularly). Or, you can choose to subscribe to the RSS feed for a section. When you scroll over that bookmark in your favourites list, a sub-menu pops up with individual links to each currently-listed story- basically, a headline-based overview of the section’s contents that changes when the stories do. You can select one ‘feed’ individually or choose to open them all at once, which is very handy when visiting sites with a lot of frequently-updated content.
Although online newspapers are the most obvious use for RSS, all kinds of sites now use them. The recent popularity of Web logs are partly due to this convenience factor, because they provide the reader with a way to check for new entries without having to actually visit a site. Once they get there, readers may also opt to read more pages than if each is a separate link that requires the usual click-and-load process.
As for the value of RSS to a business, it mostly depends on how frequently you update content and anticipate visitors wanting to keep informed. If you publish a lot of content but it’s all archival and reference material (meaning nobody reads it unless they’re looking something up), then a RSS feed isn’t much use, unless it simply reports “news” about the updates in a broader sense- for example, “Privacy Policy Modifications”, “Week of July 9th-Seven New Consumer Product Reviews”, “Enter Our Free iPod Draw”.
Sites that do a lot of online publishing or otherwise draw in readers with updated content may find RSS useful. RSS makes the site easier for busy readers to check in on, and may prompt them to visit more pages. Perhaps the best way to explore RSS is to subscribe to a half dozen different sites and follow them for a few days. You’ll discover how much RSS streamlines the browsing process and get a sense of when it is useful (and useless) to a reader. Before implementing RSS on your own site, consider how your content is accessed and read by users. Are there regular updates to deliver? If not, don’t bother enabling RSS on your site – RSS power-users quickly abandon sites where they find the same headlines day after day. Or, consider changing your publishing schedule to smaller amounts of information served up more often – that would be a way of adapting to this new and growing audience of surfers.
For more information on how to read and organize RSS feeds:
http://www.download.com/…1200-2001-5123544.html