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04 August 2010
RSS or Really Simple Syndication, is a simple and effectual way of delivering news updates and summaries on various topics and issues to users and clients. In this method, we publish and view content by making use of an XML feed which is viewed by users using a special software or a special browser feature called ‘aggregator’. The big search engines like Yahoo, MSN and even Google have adopted this method of RSS feeds, we need to delve further into the intricacies of the RSS web feeds and experiment with them. RSS has been developing for quite some years now but still remains in its immature stage as a revenue generating or promotional strategy. Awareness about RSS might increase in the near future considering Internet Explorer 7 had started with an in-built RSS support system and firefox has supported it for a long time now. It is essentially considered to be an “on demand” service. A RSS reader is a good substitute for an aggregator and if you have Firefox or Internet Explorer 7, you can immediately subscribe to RSS feeds. You can create your own RSS web feed by using RSS editor. FeedEdit is also recommended, it is another freeware and is a simple application. Once this installation is complete, you can start a new file and edit the ‘channel properties’ to give information about your feed. You can also use the ‘optional’ tabs to give proper definition to your feed. Thereafter, when you’ve saved the file with a good and memorable name in your web, you can add more feeds by using the “add item” feature. The next step is to promote your RSS feed. The percentage of RSS readers is very small though IE7 and Firefox are doing a great deal to increase its popularity through their goodwill. Both these browsers can make people aware whether a particular feed exists on the site and notify readers on any updates. For this, you will need to have special tag in the source code of your blog and site pages.
To ensure that your feed is displayed by Google, you will have to sign up for Your Google homepage or what is called Google Ig or Google reader. To submit a feed on Yahoo, you will need to have a profile on My Yahoo. Thereafter, click on the ‘add content’ link followed by “add RSS by URL” and your job is done. The “add to my yahoo” link on yahoo makes it very easy for the yahoo users to add feed to their profile. Besides this advantage, Yahoo has another pro. It provides a button where users can add your feeds to their profiles. Submitting an RSS feed to MSN is similar to Google and Yahoo but, like in Google, RSS web feeds are not appearing in their results as of now.
The technology for now isn’t perfect and marketers are facing a few problems. For instance, they remain unaware about who is viewing their feeds and how their interaction with the feeds is progressing. Yet, it remains a discovery to be reckoned with!
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