Real Simple Syndication (RSS) and Atom (Google’s format feeds) is a technology that allows distribution of content or content updates to subscribers or people with RSS readers. It’s fast becoming a great way for individuals to avoid information overload by using selective RSS “feeds” to pre-filter all their favorite content sites. But RSS is also a great way to add free and rich content to your web site. There are two approaches.
The second approach is to wire your site directly to a feeder to import content. Again, there are a variety of standard scripts, tools, or plug-ins to just that. This allows a steady stream of fresh new content to feed into your site.
The first approach is just to get plugged into the RSS feeds that you are interested in and then personally cherry-pick through the content to find materials useful to update your site. There are a wide variety of both smart and dumb RSS feed readers available to do this with.
With either approach the problem then becomes a marketing question of what material to pull into your site. Obviously material that is consistent with your targeted marketplace and you own site content is desirable. You can develop your own list of targeted RSS feeds or, alternatively, you can employ the services of any of several feed aggregators. A good example of one such aggregator would be www.syndic8.com.
Previous article: 18 February 2007
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