RSS has been around for quite some time although it has recently become a bit of a buzzword in my office. RSS stands for Rich Site Summary, Rich Site Syndication or Really Simple Syndication - yet another acronym which doesn't really describe what it is or what it does.
Using RSS you can pull content from a website database without actually having to go to the website. Obviously the website which you are pulling from has to allow it which it does by registering the document with an RSS publisher. So in essence it's a great way of sharing and transferring information between websites. Content types such as news feeds, event listings, project updates and headlines are often displayed using RSS.
The even greater thing about RSS is that you can use it to pull any information you want from any website or blog straight to your desktop. More and more sites now offer feeds which you can identify by a small button that says either RSS or XML. To read them you need an RSS feeder which you can download for free. I use sharp reader but there are plenty to choose from. I'm subscribed to Baldy's Blog, our internal project log and a great bbc news blog which means I get alerted any time one of those sites is updated.
So, why all the fuss about RSS? That I can answer - RSS is the way forward for all e-commerce stores. It is the best e-marketing tool available and will bury those horrible spammy email newsletters that nobody ever reads. But more on that another day.
1 comment:
Great summary of RSS. So, the pressure's on for marketeers - people will now only consumer what they *want* to consumer.
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