You see the little RSS logo everywhere, but probably have no idea what it does or how to use it. Don’t be scared. It is actually a pretty powerful tool that most journalists, marketers, and/or news junkies use to sift through hundreds of news articles from various of sources online.
What is RSS?
RSS stands for “Really Simple Syndication.” It is used on Web sites that frequently publish content, like a blog or newspaper site. A site that has enabled RSS, has an RSS document that summarizes the content from their site. That summary is then free for syndication, meaning that you can pull the content into a RSS reader or a webmaster may publish it for free without having to manually update it.
The Value of RSS
As a marketer, it is important for me to keep up with the latest marketing developments. With RSS, I am able to pull in articles from leading publications into a single repository. Thus I only have to visit one web page to view the headlines from my favorite publications. This saves me a lot of time!
How can you get started?
The first thing you can do is sign-up for a free RSS feed reader program. About.com put together a nice list of the top 10 feed readers. I personally use Google Reader. I also have a personalized Google start page, which is filled mostly with RSS feeds, including one from my Google Reader account.
Prediction
As education spreads about RSS, I think we’ll see adoption rates rise. Especially in the workplace. What do you think?
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