Bring Back the 80's!

All (some?) about RSS

I was recently discussing RSS with DeAnn, which proved to be very similar to discussing it with Simone, insomuch as the conversation starts with my "where is your RSS so I can aggregate j00", eventually someone finds it (there usually is one), and then they ask "Cool, great, so what is this RSS doohickey anyhow?" So I forsee the value of making my answer a blog entry.

DeAnn put the question very well. She asked:

But I don't understand how to use it or what to use it for. Is there a purpose? Is it something I should advertise? Huh?

So I said

RSS is essentially a file that your blog creates which summarizes the last half dozen or more entries in XML, which is a format that can be understood raw by both computers and geeks. Anyone who slurps up your RSS file can display your articles or excerpts of your articles on other websites (like ORblogs for instance, that is exactly what they do) or people may personally slurp your RSS into their News Aggregators, which are like news reader clients that sort articles from a bunch of sources (including your blog) for the viewer just like so many emails. They can keep track of what they read, and be notified when you post something new.

If you advertise your RSS file you are likely to increase your traffic a bit. Random visitors may just add you to their newsreaders if they can easily get to your RSS, while if they can't they might pass by your site and not see it again for a long time.

Imagine, for instance, if you liked reading the blogs of 2 dozen of your friends. You could put their blogs in your favorites menu, and visit each blog to see what was new, but 75% of them would not have anything new when you went to check, and it might be hard to keep track of whether you've already read one of their stories, and it would get very difficult very fast. If instead all of your friends have RSS and you put them all in your aggregator, it can go out and check everyone's RSS file like every hour while you are doing other things and notify you when someone has a new entry.. and keep track of what you've already read.. and you don't have to visit someone's blog unless/until there is new content.

RSS is kind of what has made blogs as practical as they are, kind of like guns made cowboys practical and batteries make a laptop practical.

A good news reader to start off with, in case you want to try one out, is SharpReader. There are plenty of others, that's the one I've been using tho. :)

Posted by jesse at August 26, 2004 01:26 AM