The RSS revolution - Using RSS: An Explanation and Guide

Information Outlook, Dec, 2002 by Steven M. Cohen

In August 2002, Bloglet was modified to accept any RSS feed, allowing the new content of any site that supports RSS to be sent via e-mail. One problem with Bloglet is that it sends out the e-mail only once a day. Still, it is a wonderful tool for those who do not want to use aggregators.

But RSS is not without faults. Many sites still do not support RSS feeds, although the numbers have been increasing lately and the advances in RSS have been quick to appear. I don't believe that RSS will ever be provided for every single site; if it is to be a force in content delivery, more people need to understand its value and provide support for it.

Also, news aggregators must be smarter. Information overload can become increasingly problematic when you subscribe to feeds. In the future, I hope to be able to limit the number of feeds that appear on my desktop to certain keywords. Many news-tracking services already have this capability; if RSS is to remain competitive as a content delivery method, the feeds need to be more focused.

Steven M. Cohen IS assistant librarian for Rivkin Radler LLP, of Uniondale, NY.