WHAT IS: RSS?

For the smart PR professional, the Internet should be the first port of call in the morning to keep on top of the daily news agenda and spot any potential newsjacking opportunities.

At the last count, Google claimed that it currently indexes roughly one trillion web pages. OK, we know that 99.999 per cent of those pages are probably about ponies, midgets and the like, but that still leaves a huge amount of information that needs to be sifted through.

One of my personal favourite developments in Web technology has to be the RSS feed. The latest, arguably flawed research from Forrester revealed that 11 per cent of consumers use RSS. There are a number of variations of both RSS itself and what the RSS stands for. However, for our purposes, we will stick to the RSS created by Dave Winer, which is often referred to as RSS 2.0 with the initials meaning Really Simple Syndication.

PR professionals who monitor specific websites on a daily [or more frequent] basis would have to remember each website and open them individually. They would then have to scan each site to look for new news items and make note of them / collate them / remember them. 

However, by working in tandem with sites or applications  such as Google Reader, Bloglines or NewsGator [also known as feed aggregators], RSS feeds allow you to manage all the content on a site. Readers can subscribe to feeds by clicking on the RSS button [pictured]. The news aggregator site will then display any new content and automatically update itself.

At its very most basic, it means that instead of visiting each news site, any new, relevant content is pulled for you, on a single site. It might sound lazy, but a PRO could literally scan a page of headlines looking for relevant stories in minutes instead of opening the 30 or so new sites they have to regularly check. Instead of remembering to visit all those sites, the user only needs to remember the address of his or her news aggregator site [or even have it as their home page]. Updates, to wiki or blogs can also be quickly viewed.

RSS feeds do not sound like the most terribly exciting internet tool. However, used with news aggregator sites, RSS feeds can shave time off the daily grind of PR life.

Comments

[The Red Rocket]

I stopped reading e-newsletters years ago, subscribing initially to Bloglines to get RSS feeds. I'm a netvibes user now.

Now, when I'm doing online PR training, the first thing I explain is RSS feeds and aggregators.

You're right, it's not exactly sexy. It's so simple, but I'm surprised every PR - no, ever person in any kind of information-based work - doesn't use them.