Feeding Frenzy

First, a question of necessity: Do I need to publish RSS feeds for my site? Probably not. Truth is, most sites don't need an RSS feed.

RSS was made to share things like headlines, links, and story excerpts — hence its popularity with news sites and bloggers. If your webpage hardly changes from month-to-month, there’s really no pressing need to publish your own RSS feed. However, you might consider integrating content from relevant external RSS feeds onto your page to freshen things up.

But you don't need to be the AP Newswire or an online Samuel Pepys to get good use out of RSS. RSS can spread the word about a band's tour dates, corporate league sports schedules, civic functions, snow reports, real estate listings, university lectures, software updates, et cetera. If you semi-regularly update content on your website, building an RSS feed is (as advertised) Really Simple, and provides a worthwhile way of delivering your content to your readers.

Who's making and reading RSS?

Well, all the "cool kids" are doing it — Bloggers and technophiles, by and large, have been the main publishers and consumers of RSS for the past few years. These crafty folk are often the vanguard of larger Internet trends even if they are a small slice of the Web demographic as a whole.

You may be asking yourself, if it's only the cool kids who are into this whole RSS scene, should I bother with downloading an RSS newsreader? The answer is simple: Absolutely! For starters, try something like NetNewsWire for the Mac or AmphetaDesk for Windows, Mac, or Linux. Give RSS a spin for a few days and you'll be hooked.

RSS apps bring a wide selection of bespoke news to your desktop without requiring you to wade through links and bookmarks. Generally free of layout code, heavy graphics, and advertising, RSS feeds download quickly. Plus, RSS uses simple code, so it's available no matter what kind of device you're using. For example, I often lack access to telephone lines when I'm on the road, so I use my Bluetooth cellular modem and NetNewsWire to keep in touch with my favorite sites.

Test-driving an RSS reader is also the best way to understand what the RSS scene is about. Take a look at who’s talking: Bloggers dominate the list of syndication sites at Syndic8.com and NewsIsFree.com, but tech heavyweights like MSDN, Apple, and Oracle offer feeds, too. Major news outfits like the BBC and Christian Science Monitor also provide RSS feeds of their stories, some even on a section-by-section basis.