The Power of RSS

It's means power to me.

RSS or Really Simple Syndication is so tied to blog's that I'd like to spend a minute on it. I was talking to a client the other day about the feeds I subscribe to. He was amazed the technology existed. Even more so when I said it was already integrated into his blog.

For me, RSS has taken the place of what used to be several hours' worth of Web surfing in an average week. It condensed my routine of a few dozen marketing and web trade sites (up to two hours), into a process that takes anywhere from 15 minutes to a half hour. Even better is that it is so easy to use and free.

The content is delivered to me the minute my favorite site updates their content. I control how and when it comes, even what it looks like. The technology manages everything else.

My list of RSS feeds is constantly evolving. I recently added the Dilbert comic strip so I could find the ones I usually miss during the week. I categorize and re-categorize feeds, refine them and create new ones (usually based on search terms I'd like to keep tabs on). And, of course, I'm always subscribing to new and interesting feeds while deleting the ones that have fallen out of favor or never do updates.

In case you are wondering if this sounds a bit like email. It's not. Email is something you just can't control. After all, once spammers and unscrupulous marketers latched on to an e-mail address, it's pretty much impossible to get rid of them. With RSS, you can unsubscribe immediately and never receive anything from that feed again. Now that's power.