RSS Feed and its Importance

There are two popular names RSS stands for - Really Simple Syndication and Remote Site Syndication. While the name Really Simple Syndication is gaining popularity, it is the latter that is more technically correct.

Whichever name it goes by, what RSS feed does is push content to your site. 

Suppose you have designed a website on finance, but lack the resources to update the content every day. If you subscribe to the RSS feed provided by big finance related websites, you need not update your website. Whenever there is new news, it is instantly and automatically pushed to your website. Suppose you specialize in providing finance related services to India. You can then even specify to push content to your website that is related only to India.

RSS is a Web 2.0 phenomenon. It is developed in XML (a language akin to HTML with it's own special syntax and tags). The main advantage of XML is that it can create an 'information feed' that pushes content onto your website. Once you get this content, you can easily distribute it the way you want - for example, as an e-mail alert or as a newsletter to your subscribers.

Of course, it is not that simple to get RSS feed. The first thing you will need is a RSS reader. There are many RSS readers available today that are either browser based or a downloadable application. Some popular choices include My Yahoo, iGoogle, Bloglines or Feedster. Of course, you need only one reader for all of your RSS feed subscriptions. 

What is the difference between browsers based RSS reader and a downloadable one? Browser based RSS readers are accessible from any computer. However, if you want to store the RSS feed on your computer, you need a downloadable reader. In other words, the difference is same as accessing your mail from hotmail, vis a vis configuring your Outlook. 

Once you have chosen which reader to use, you simply have to decide which content you would like to subscribe to.

If, instead of subscribing to RSS feed, you provide one, your website also stand to gain from a search engine optimization point of view.

It is not difficult to design a website to accept or provide RSS Feed, many web design companies from India and elsewhere can do it for you.