I know that many of you will already know what RSS is. However, considering the low percentages that have recently been reported (see numerous posts in Rok's rssdiary.marketingstudies.net blog), only a tiny fraction of Internet users are consciously aware of or have even heard of RSS. So since I'm starting a new blog anyways, I figure that a brief overview is in order.

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is, in a nutshell, an Internet technology that makes it easy for content publishers to syndicate their content, and for others to receive that content in a similarly easy manner.

Unlike e-mail, RSS is perceived as a "pull technology". That means that subscribers go and actively read the information. However, some people think RSS is a push technology, like e-mail is, because they receive RSS Feed "headlines" in their RSS Reader application. This has been a point of confusion with some of my clients, which is understandable.

So why all the buzz about RSS? Well, besides being an easy method of content syndication, RSS Feeds also help information-subscribers (i.e., you readers) find focused information rapidly from multiple websites. Right now, if you go use a search engine for a specific word or phrase, you may get millions of results and still not find what you are looking for.

On the other hand, if you have already scoped out a number of RSS Feeds , your RSS Reader will list headlines for various articles. Click on those headlines that seem interesting, and you'll either see an excerpt of that article, or the whole article. In the case of the former, you can then click on a "more" type of link and you'll end up visiting the source web page, where you can see the entire article.

This method of finding content has proven to be so effective for most RSS Feed subscribers that they often visit the same website more often, as well as more websites per day. If you are doing business on the Internet, you already know that gaining more page views will often translate into steady readers and potentially more revenue for your business, whether through sales of products or services, or even through advertising revenue.

(c) Copyright: 2005-present, Raj Kumar Dash, http://www.chameleonintegration.com