• by Ross Fadner , April 7, 2004

The acronym RSS is popping up more frequently in the online media world. It usually stands for Really Simple Syndication, although Rich Site Summary is sometimes used and is an equally apt translation.

RSS is a method of syndication used to feed users Web content through XML, Web programming's universal language. RSS is a type of XML Syndication. Atom, an open source XML Syndication format, has emerged as the other major force in the RSS arena.

Atom was most recently selected by Google's Blogger.com as its primary XML syndication format. Many information technology (IT) professionals believe that because Atom is an open standard and because Google has selected Atom as its preferred syndication format, Atom will soon displace RSS as the dominant XML syndication platform. RSS founder and arbiter, Harvard fellow Dave Winer, has been criticized for exercising undue control over the syndication medium, prompting IT-industry innovators to create the new open source syndication technology.

Currently, most people associate XML Syndication with a type of personalized news feeder/aggregator. Major content sites like the New York Times Co.'s NYTimes.com, BBC.com, CNET.com, Dow Jones & Co.'s WSJ.com, and Gannett Co.'s USAToday.com currently offer syndicated XML feeds of headlines to RSS readers. Bloggers, however, tend to be most actively involved in XML syndication. Often, bloggers provide their entire content stream to RSS readers, whereas content providers like NYTimes.com will only submit headlines in order to draw users to their site for more in-depth coverage.

XML Syndication is transmitted to users through RSS readers or feeders. RSS is only one type of XML Syndication, but most formats take on the RSS name--RSS 0.90, RSS 0.91, RSS 1.0, RSS 2.0. An XML Syndication reader is called an RSS reader. RSS readers are available in a wide variety of formats, including software applications, Web-based applications, and email applications. SharpReader, FeedBurner, and UserLand represent software-based RSS feeders.

There are several Web-based RSS readers, and most are provided by bloggers. Yahoo! currently offer its users a personalized RSS reader through its My Yahoo! section, and Microsoft Corp. is expected to package an RSS reader with its forthcoming Longhorn Operating System. NewsGator 2.0 is the current email-based RSS standard feeder, compatible with Microsoft's Outlook.

Early adopters claim that one of the main advantages XML feeds have over email, for example, is that spammers--as yet--have no way of penetrating RSS readers. This is because the push model incorporated by RSS is as easy to manage as a bookmark in an Internet favorites list. Consumers can add multiple XML feeds to their folders and delete them if the feeds become annoying.

For email marketers, this could be a revelation. Imagine publishing an email newsletter that has a 100 percent delivery rate, or a world without opt-in/opt-out and other industry etiquette concerns.

Whether RSS readers emerge as a critical news/personal information-gathering medium remains to be seen. Like all new Web technologies, it will come down to usage, and to a certain extent, standardization, says Tom Hespos, president, Underscore Marketing.

Hespos says that XML Syndication currently faces a standardization problem. "There are plenty of readers but no killer apps." Hespos notes that XML Syndication is still very much in the early adopter stage. "All I see is a lot of bickering in the early adopter community," he says. "[XML Syndication] lives in blogging communities. If Microsoft were to take it up that would be a good thing, because it would speed up the adoption process."

Rick Bruner, president, Executive Summary Consulting, agrees. "It comes down to what Microsoft does with it. Longhorn is expected to come with an RSS reader. At that point, it could go mainstream--it could become a viable ad medium then," Bruner says.