::News You Can Use:: Have You Heard About RSS Yet? Learn what you need to know about the next big thing in marketing on the Web.
:: If you spend your days on the Web, you are probably using RSS to get most of your news, read your favorite blogs, and keep an eye on job opportunities in your field.
But, if you are not a Web full-time resident yet, you probably don't have a clue about what RSS stands for.
What's RSS?
I guess you would rather avoid the definition for geeks, so I won't bother you with any technical details. RSS stands for Real Simple Syndication (or Rich Site Summary).
Why should you care about RSS?
Here are a few examples of what RSS can do for you and your business:
- Help you optimize the time you spend on following the news and trends about your industry, clients or competitors by centralizing all your news sources in one place
- Help you decrease the amount of email you get daily by moving most of your newsletter subscriptions out of your email box
- Help you assure that your clients can get timely news and updates about your company despite their company email firewalls and other spam filters
So, how RSS can do all of the above exactly?
Once you have subscribed to an RSS feed on a website (a news site, a company website, a blog, etc.), you automatically receive updated information straight to your RSS reader. Your RSS reader can be installed locally on your desktop (like any of Microsoft applications) or hosted on a web server (like online banking).
Looks like email, what's the difference?
Email and RSS do almost the same thing: delivering content to people. They use different channels and applications, but their main difference is the balance of power between message senders and message recipients.
With email (and regular snail mail) you get what is sent to you by anyone who can get his/her hands on your email address.
With RSS, you (and your current or prospective clients if you have an RSS feed on your website) get only what you included in your RSS subscriptions.
How do I get started?
Before thinking of RSS as a marketing tool for your company, you should probably give it a test drive.
The easiest (and free) way to delve into the wonderful world of RSS feeds is to go to www.bloglines.com, open a free account and subscribe to feeds suggested in Bloglines directory. You can also subscribe to RSS feeds you come across on the Web by clicking on the orange RSS icons you might have already noticed on your favorite sites, copying the address of the resulting page and adding it to your Bloglines account.
Published: 2005-03-18
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