In a nutshell, RSS is a technology which allows you to have exactly the information you want to read from the internet delivered straight to you. Effectively, having found a source of information that you are interested in, RSS will let you know every time a new piece of information is available and send it to you rather than you having to revisit and check all of the sites looking for it yourself!

What does RSS mean?

There are two commonly held views of what RSS stands for - Really Simple Syndication or Rich Site Summary. Each of these touches on one of the key uses of RSS. It provides the publisher with a way for other sites to use and hence “syndicate” news and content that has been created and, for the reader, it gives a summary of the updated contents of a favourite site.

If you want to subscribe to and read an RSS feed, then you will need to have an RSS reader (also known as an RSS aggregator) which will either be one that you have installed on your PC or one which you access online. (More info on RSS Readers here) Then, when you wish to subscribe to an RSS feed, you simply copy the relevant URL of the feed into the reader and everything else is done for you. Couldn’t be simpler!

Publishing your own RSS Feed

If you want to publish your own RSS feed so that visitors to your blog can receive an automatic update when you add new posts, then you are in luck. Most blog software creates the feed automatically for you, so all that you have to do is tell people where they can find it - this is usually done with a small orange box with “RSS” or “XML” in it although a new orange icon is likely to become the standard as it has been taken up by a couple of the major players going forward. You will also find branded buttons from Newsgator, Yahoo and the like (as you will see on this site) for people using those RSS readers - however, they all supply the same information so you are just making it easier for your readers to subscribe.

So, should I use them?

I would certainly advise using them, both as a reader and a publisher. RSS feeds are a fabulous way of providing information and spreading the word. From the reader’s point of view, they can save hours of work revisiting sites looking for new information and, from a Business Blog’s perspective, they provide a simple way of promoting your blog by sharing the great information directly with the people who want to receive it. A match made in heaven!

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To most, RSS is not going to appear to be the most exciting tool in the social media box - it’s not coming out in video any time soon, can’t rival podcasts in the audio department, doesn’t seem to interact with anything and, all in all, comes across like someone who’d prefer to sit in the corner at parties rather than get out there and mix.

True, but only half the story. In fact, it seems to me that RSS is in need of a good PR agent.

Well, I’m no PR Guru, but I’m going to try to show with a series of posts over the next week, how RSS is an immensely powerful tool which can be used in any number of exciting (yes, exciting) and useful ways, whether you are looking at it from a user’s or a publisher’s point of view.

The posts will be looking at:

1. RSS - An Introduction: What is it and how to use it
2. Benefits of RSS for publishers & bloggers
3. Benefits of RSS for users & subscribers
4. Marketing with RSS
5. Using Feedburner to optimise your RSS
6. Ways to increase your RSS subscribers

So subscribe to my RSS feed to make sure you don’t miss anything and if you don’t know what I mean by that then the first part of the series will be right up your street!

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The RSS Feed is one of those key underlying technologies in a blog that can do a huge number of things for us and yet most of us, myself included, are still only scratching the surface with it.

Its main use is of course to give your readers a secure and immediate way of receiving your latest posts by subscribing to your RSS feed through an RSS Reader. Nevertheless, with so many internet users still unfamiliar with RSS in spite of its many benefits, I always recommend also offering the option of subscribing to the RSS feed via email as well.

The easiest way to offer this is by using a third party supplier. Feedburner, for example, provides you with the code to create a basic sign up form on your blog and then visitors can use to subscribe to receiving your blog updates automatically via email. A similar service is provided by Feedblitz and Zookoda.

Normally, you receive these on a daily basis as posts are published. However, there is another provider, Aweber, which gives you the option to take that one step further and effectively create a newsletter with your posts.

Aweber is probably best known as an autoresponder and email service provider along the lines of Constant Contact and Vertical Response. However, last year, they also launched a service called Blog Broadcast which essentially delivers your blog posts via email but also offers other features in as well. As you would expect from a company which specialises in email and newsletter delivery, this is includes a range of templates to control the look of the emails sent out, personalisation of aspects of the message and title, and tracking of links or ads.

In addition, as of this week, they have added a scheduling feature to the service. This means that you can now use the service to send out your posts on a schedule which suits you and your readers rather than one decided by the software. For example, you can now automatically send your readers a newsletter every week or every month by email with all of your posts. A great way to use emails to help support your blog.

Granted this is not a free service but the additional benefits that this gives you are certainly worthwhile and particularly if you also use the other services it offers. For example, I use the autoresponder to deliver my Business Blogging eCourse and you can also use the email broadcast system to send other ezines or general communication to your readers.

So, if you want to do more than simply send out each post as you make it or you’re looking for an automated way to publish a newsletter to your list of readers, then this might well be worth looking at.

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To say that I’m not a fan of Blogger is probably understating things a bit - when it comes to business blogs, their system is certainly way down the list of blogging platforms that I’d choose or recommend.

However, when it comes to their owner Google, then as part of their foray into the world of blogging, Blogger is a crucial part. Firstly, in spite of my reservations, they certainly helped the personal blogger (and splogger - but that’s a different story) by buying and developing Blogger when blogging was still something that the general public knew nothing about and businesses had never considered them as a serious marketing tool.

After that, they introduced a blog specific search engine which, although it doesn’t match Technorati in the level of information that it offers, is still blog specifc and is updated very quickly through pinging. Recently, they have also bought Feedburner which is the preeminent RSS tool - a key element of blogs around the world.

So what have they done now? Well, in many respects, nothing as innovative as the elements that I have mentioned above, but nevertheless, something which is significant … although it may not sound it. They have added blogs to their universal search engine.

So what is good about that? Well firstly, this is the selection that you can make on Google’s homepage which currently allows you to choose images, news, maps … etc or others. In the near future, you should also be able to choose blogs as well as an individual “category”. This is a real change and step forward for blogs because of the preeminence and influence that Google has as a Search Engine which will in its turn benefit blogs more than simply having the blog search engine as a separate entity.

So, yet again, Google leads the way in terms of accessing and referencing blogs … so let’s take advantage of the elements that they offer and use them to our advantage!

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Feedburner announced today that it has acquired Blogbeat, which is a provider of blog analytics based in Raleigh, Durham.

As a fan of Feedburner and the services that they offer, this is good news that that they are further extending their services and particularly so because they have expressed the intention to include the blog analytics as an extension of the free services package. These are already hugely useful in tracking and customising RSS feeds and so adding in the ability to track visitors as well can only add to this.

As they have also announced that Jeff Turner, Blogbeat founder, will be joining Feedburner as Lead Engineer, Web Analytics, they are clearly expressing their intention to develop this area further - another positive step. For a Business Blog to be truly effective, we need to be able to measure its success according to the goals that we have for it - visitors to the blog and RSS readership are two of the possible criteria by which to do so.

We should also be using stats packages and analytics to get a better idea of which posts and subject areas are proving the biggest attraction for our readers - with this information at our fingertips, we can then make sure that we adapt our writing, provide the type of information that is most in demand and so give our readers what they are looking for.

Feedburner expect to have the Blogbeat services integrated by the 4th quarter of this year and I for one will be looking forward to using them.

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A couple of small steps last week to note regarding RSS feeds and getting a more common and compatible system across more of the main blogging platforms.

Firstly, Blogger.com finally added support for RSS to their system in addition to the Atom feeds that they had been using. While not riveting news perhaps, it does give people using Blogger a better choice of how they want to syndicate their content which is certainly for the best (although I’m sure there’s no need to repeat here my views on whether Businesses should be using Blogger!).

In any case, you will ideally still put your feed through Feedburner for all the good reasons that I outlined in Feedburner: using your feeds more effectively.

Talking of Feeedburner, the other news was that they have been working with Six Apart on the TypePad system and they are now able to offer better integration between the two systems. This means that anyone using TypePad can also benefit from all the subscriber information and promotional elements that Feedburner offers.

So what does this all mean? Well, it’s really just another step in the integration of all of the services across the main blogging platforms which should ultimately be of benefit to bothe publishers and readers of Blogs alike, because they will be able to use the same familiar tools no matter what blogging software is being used. Having worked for may years in the mobile computing industry where this was the exception rather than the norm, I for one am glad to see it happening.

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There are two sites that I always walk people through whenever I start to work with them on their Blogs: Technorati and Feedburner. Why? Because I believe that Technorati is the start point for anyone looking to find out more about what is out in the Blogosphere and because Feedburner provides some excellent easy to use tools that all bloggers can benefit from, right from the start.

Feedburner offers a number of paid services which you can progress on to as the need arises, but their free services are well worth taking the time to examine and incorporate in your Blog. There are ones which I particularly recommend because I feel that they help in utilising and developing your Blog’s RSS Feed in important ways.

The elements I would highlight are:

Subscriber information: by channeling your RSS Feed subscriptions through Feedburner, you can gain additional information about those subscribing. Specifically, it allows you to identify the number of people that are actively subscribed to your feed, as well as providing information on the type of reader they are using and the articles that have been visited directly from the feed itself.

User friendly RSS feed: there are some small touches you can make to enhance the experience for people receiving your feed such as including your logo, which in itself reinforces the branding aspect, and changing the description of the feed. Although these are changes you can make yourself directly to the feed with a little technical knowledge, this makes it simple for everyone to apply.

Feed Reader Chicklets: the code and images required to create the small RSS feed logos relating to each of the main RSS Readers are provided. While not strictly necessary, any method such as this which increases the visibility of your feed on your Blog can only be beneficial to your promotional activities.

RSS Feed via email: for those people who don’t use RSS readers but still want to know when you have updated your blog, there is the option of an email subscription service. Feedburner provides you with the code to create a basic sign up form on your blog and then visitors can use to subscribe to receiving your blog updates automatically via email. A similar service is provided by Feedblitz.

Headline Animator: this is a small image using an animated gif file, which automatically displays the titles of the last 5 posts from your Blog and allows people to click through a sign up for the feed. It appears in the form of a box (2 formats available) which can be used either in emails or perhaps in online forums etc.

PingShot: this is an ideal companion to the concept of “Post and Ping”, where PingShot notifies a number of servers at once that you have published new content on your Blog . No real difference from the other services available at Pingomatic and Pingoat (indeed it works through Pingomatic) but a good extra service.

How do you do this? Well, just head along to the Feedburner site, sign up for an account and then “burn” a Feed using your current feed, follow the instructions and away you go! There are some useful services there and with RSS destined to become more widespread as the year progresses, set up in the best way you can in readiness.

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I’ve been prompted to share with you some of the places where you can get RSS Readers - which one is for you depends entirely on your preference and the computer you use.

Just as a quick recap, an RSS feed is a way of keeping up to date with information that you wish to receive by getting it delivered directly to you. To do this, you subscribe to the RSS feed on the website you are interested in using an RSS Reader, also known as a Feed Reader or RSS Aggregator.

There are a number of different RSS Readers available which vary according to whether you are prefer to use an online reader or one which you can download, and it will also be dependent on the operating system that you are using.

Some that I recommend that you look at and consider are:

Online
Bloglines
Newsgator
Google Reader
My Yahoo

Offline (Windows)
Pluck
Feeddemon
FeedReader

Offline (Mac)
NetNewsWire
NewsMac Pro

If you’re after a really comprehensive list of RSS readers then try RSS Compendium - there really are lots to choose from!

The future

RSS is going to become more and more widespread and more recognised as time progresses - already it is appearing on more and more sites and should be a no brainer for all blog sites.

In terms of readers, the major players in the industry are all getting involved. Already, as you can see from the online readers mentioned above, the main Search Engines provide an online RSS reader in their customised homepage which is gaining momentum. This will only intensify as Microsoft will be including a reader as part of the next version of their Internet Explorer browser and FireFox already has one included in their current version which is becoming very popular.

So if you’re doing research and need to monitor lots of sites for news, or if you want to keep abreast of what is being said about certain industries perhaps for articles in your own blog, then you need to be using an RSS reader so you can see just how easy it can make your life. If you are publishing a blog or a website, then you need to be equally aware that this is increasingly going to be how people read your latest news.

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When you update your Business Blog, then clearly you want to tell people about it so that they come to read what you have posted. There are a number of Search Engines which deal with blogs and also RSS feeds - RSS feeds must < I repeat, must > form a part of any blog worth its name. In order to inform them that you have new information for them to index, the best way is to “ping” them so that they can visit your blog and retrieve the new information and make it available to their users.

The best way to do this is to incorporate an automatic “ping” into your blog but if that is not available then they are a number of services which can take the pain out of this for you by “pinging” a number of the Search Engines for you. Two of these are Pingomatic and Pingoat which will inform a number of the relevant engines for you. Another option is to use a relatively new service introduced by FeedBurner called PingShot which is part of their free service at the moment.

Whichever way you decide to do it, you need to tell the Search Engines that there is new content available so either integrate this into your blog or get into the habit of POSTING and then PINGING!

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