A good article explaing RSS and goes a long way in providing...

A good article explaing RSS and goes a long way in providing good enough reason, for LOOKSMART's "pioneering" involvement through "OPEN SEARCH", (yet to be released) in this growing phenomenon !!

Harnessing the Power of RSS
Last modified: June 20, 2005, 9:24 PM
Contributed By: Paul J. Bruemmer

Harnessing the Power of RSS

A Pew report on The State of Blogging estimates 8 million Americans publish blogs, with blog readership up 58 percent in 2004. Thirty-two million users read blogs, and 6 million have RSS readers to receive news and website content on a regular basis.

While not yet widely adopted, RSS is gaining acceptance as it gives users the opportunity to opt-in for information from blogs and websites. This fits in with the idea of consumer choice and control, the latest trend in online marketing.

RSS in a Nutshell

RSS, an acronym for Really Simple Syndication, is an XML-based format for content distribution (source CNET ). The RSS code creates an XML file describing the content of your RSS feed (website content or other communications).

A new breed of Internet search crawlers (also known as aggregators) stop by to visit and read your RSS feed periodically. When you provide new information, the aggregator retrieves the new data and sends it to opt-in users worldwide. Information about your site's content, such as articles or press releases, can be syndicated or publicized to a potentially large audience.

Users opt-in for information.

Information is accessed through RSS readers (also known as news aggregators or newsreaders ).
Each item in an RSS feed has a title (headline), a brief article summary and link to the online article, making the info quickly scanable.

RSS makes it easy to publish content without using HTML, so content can be updated and aggregated in real time.

As RSS gains wider acceptance, it will impact the way companies communicate online and the way users get information. RSS not only provides benefits for publishers and users, it also enhances Search Engine Marketing programs.

RSS Enhances Search Engine Marketing

There are two major benefits of RSS syndication for search engine marketing:

Increase qualified traffic
Produce quality inbound links
You can significantly increase qualified traffic to your site by publishing valuable content. Many webmasters will add RSS content and corresponding links to their website if they find the content to be fresh and of interest to their audience.

You can get links directly to your RSS feed the same way you get links to your traditional web pages. The RSS feed provides an additional component that is linkable.

The major search engines recognize the potential of RSS as a rapidly growing new distribution channel. Yahoo Search Marketing is looking at the placement of its sponsored links within publishers' RSS feeds. Google recently announced that contextual ads within its AdWords program will automatically go into RSS feeds and is testing a means for targeting ads. MSN is developing services that build syndication feeds into MSN Alerts, MSN search, and a Windows screen saver .

RSS Expands Publisher Reach

RSS provides a non-intrusive way for site owners to draw attention to new articles and content, as well as other communications like press releases, customer notifications and event announcements .

Information in the RSS feed is easily syndicated, increasing content distribution and reach, giving publishers more exposure in niche markets. It allows publishers to communicate with targeted user groups, reaching potential customers through a new communication channel. RSS automates content delivery.

RSS facilitates corporate communications without spam filters. A significant benefit of RSS is its opt-in feature, giving users control over the information they receive. RSS could eventually rival email as a communication tool for two major reasons:

The technology is appealing because of its simplicity.
Content is delivered based on user choice, eliminating the burdens of maintaining email lists, avoiding spam filters and establishing privacy policies.

RSS Saves You Time

Users can quickly scan article titles to read information of interest. Because the feed data is centralized, you can review a lot of information quickly or click for more. Choose the information you want without spam anxiety. If the content is disappointing, just remove it from your reader.

A major advantage of RSS feed over search engines is that info is very fresh. The XML documents used in RSS can be indexed from millions of sources several times per hour, providing updates to existing content. HTML documents used in traditional search engines are also indexed quickly, but they can't deliver the same depth of information or provide immediate updates to existing content.

RSS readers provide easy navigation for classifying and categorizing data. This maximizes your time and facilitates later retrieval. The readers constantly update your feeds and indicate unread feeds. In fact, a reader functions much like an email client.

RSS Helps Organize Data

Organizing your computer and the data within can be a challenge because so much information is available from different sources. A lot of people have gone to newsreader applications like Pluck to manage their online information. Visits between browsers, email, search engines, and RSS readers enable people to control their own information center.

FeedDemon is another user-friendly application that allows for quick scanning and indexing of topics while viewing content in a split-screen web browser. To find topic-specific feeds, go to Feedster, the RSS search engine that indexes XML feeds. You can conduct a search and also retrieve and submit feeds. Feedster has “a fresh index across over 6 million feeds several times per hour, adding millions of new documents daily.”

Creating an RSS Feed

Using RSS, publishers can create keyword-rich content, establish trust and reputation, and generate ongoing communication with prospective customers and target groups.

The Yellowstonepark.com site owners are journalists and have traditionally published many content-rich articles offline. Once I suggested RSS, the offline articles were shifted online via RSS feed. These articles now have broad distribution to niche users seeking the latest information on Yellowstone National Park . To see the XML icon and Archive News link on the main news page, click here and look in the bottom left-hand corner.

You don't have to be a techie to publish your RSS feed. For more information on how to create an RSS feed, I found the tutorial by Stephen Downes to be the best and certainly the most entertaining. Another excellent RSS resource can be found in a blog at Harvard Law. Yahoo has a Publisher's Guide to RSS that tells you how to create, submit and promote feeds.

A good resource for RSS information, including an RSS Feed Creation Tool, is RSS Specifications , listing over 50 sites for submitting RSS feeds. Google employee Thomas Korte provides a tool that submits your feed to 15 feed aggregators including Daypop, Technorati, Google and Yahoo Search. For premium RSS submission services, try Nooked or Simplefeed.

Summing It All Up

RSS is a valuable marketing tool that is effective for reaching niche customers and prospects. You'll also catch the eye of the journalists monitoring these feeds, as well as your business partners, affiliates and investors. Users will love its timesaving, information-centralizing and spam-free quality. Websites will enjoy the extra traffic and inbound links.

:)
LC