Rss And The Annual Assembly
Of The Grand Techno-Geeks
Author: Scott Lindsay
The crowd was enthusiastic as they wait for the keynote speaker to take the stage. Many waited all day to get in the door and this followed more than a year for this event. The production crew had come to expect the wild response as Ricky Sam Saboro makes his way to the stage and the lights focus on his industrial pocket protector and Blackberry.
"Good evening," he begins, and then waits for the crowd to settle. "Tonight we refuse to look to the future because the future is now."
Again the crowd erupts in applause and a standing ovation.
"Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. Please take your seats. Many of you are pleased with the autodiscovery made possible by spiderbots while channels are syndicated finding validation to distribute the headline element. Perhaps the most exciting part of this paradigm is that the publisher accepts the subscriber who has a reader for successful syndication. All of this works conjunctively with text, audio and video. Long live RSS."
At that point the assembly of Grand Techno-Geeks roar their approval and rush the stage for autographs. A few of the more sensitive ones cry as they promise to remember this event for the remainder of their lives.
If you're like most people probably none of this made any sense, but for those that have a full understanding of Real Simple Syndication (RSS) they understand that a complex series of events need to work together for the electronic syndication of data. A fully functional RSS is a happy thing because it is filled with incredible potential.
Newspapers use RSS to alert their readers to breaking news. Sites with recipes syndicate their latest culinary creation. Online broadcasters syndicate podcasts and your favorite writer may syndicate a column using RSS.
The use of RSS has made it possible for consumers to access information they want in ways unheard of just a few years ago. Access to information has never been more dominate. The use of RSS has linked information and entertainment oriented consumers with willing information suppliers.
In most cases the ability to supply RSS has been simplified for both the end user and the syndication supplier. This is great news for those who have felt as if they needed to speak like Ricky Sam Saboro in order to use the function of RSS.
The end user only needs to locate an RSS Reader. On a positive note many are free and some are standard applications in some popular web browsers.
When you sign up for an RSS Feed you are still left with a few choices. For instance most RSS feeds will include a basic headline of the information you are receiving via RSS. That headline should provide enough information to determine if you are interested in investigating further or moving on to something else.
For the content owner RSS provides value because individuals can be alerted quickly and without the need to do anything more strenuous than post the syndicated material for online consumption. The RSS feed does the rest by alerting consumers when new material becomes available.
