Reduce User Browsing Time with RSS
Really Simple Syndication (RSS) is a web content syndication format (XML-based) that is used for content distribution. One simple way to describe it - Television controllers allow you to set certain buttons on your remote for a specific TV station. Or your local news has a certain button for you to turn to watch the news i.e. Channel 3 news at 6 o’ clock. So you press channel 3 and boom, you're there.
RSS is KIND of like that for the web. RSS is better than TV channel saving, it’s like a TIVO. TV channel saving just saves the TV station number, unless you have a TIVO (DVR). A TIVO allows you to record specific shows that you want to watch. That is what RSS does. It records any new changes to a particular website that you frequently go to and it automatically updates for you. It basically narrows down any new updates to the website. RSS is used for a number of news websites, blogs, and vlogs (video blogs).
So how do you subscribe to a website? Well first the webmaster must have an RSS feed for you to subscribe to. Those feeds are buttons on the website where you click to subscribe.
You should know which button you pushed and that integrates with RSS reader (aka RSS aggregator). An RSS reader is basically a web based application that saves the subscription for you. If you have a my yahoo account or AOL/MSN then your subscription to the website will be posted on those main pages for you. However, there are separate readers you can use like feed demon ($29.99) or Google Reader (Free). Google reader is awesome and has a little video for you to watch about the reader.
So, instead of surfing daily across 20 favorite web sites for 30 minutes, your user can now do it all on one page in 5 minutes!
Posted in: Technology on Tuesday, November 28, 2006 at