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David Beisel’s Perspective on Digital Change

RSS Isn’t Just For Blogs

RSS isn’t just for blogs. In fact, RSS is for so much more than blogs. Really Simple Syndication is a protocol that can and will be used for delivering any type of incremental content.
On the consumer end of things, there are so many pieces of information that users in the future will be able to receive on a timely basis – audio tracks, announcements about bestselling books, coupons or sales, relevant news articles, etc. The list is nearly endless. (Rok Hrastnik posted a great list of potential ideas of how RSS could be used for a marketing department communicating with its outside constituents.) User-generated microcontent is another great candidate for syndication through feeds. Already users can be updated on answers to questions like “Any good recipes for salad dressing?” and “What should I know about traveling in Australia?” at Helium Knowledge. As microcontent engines develop and evolve towards critical mass, these information nuggets will become increasingly relevant and timely for the end-user. And consumers won’t just receive RSS feeds on their PC, but also on any “connected” device, like mobile phones.
And in the enterprise, the number of use-cases is also lengthy. The NewsGator Enterprise product page suggests that corporate users will receive content from “applications, collaboration suites, content management systems, and portals.” All of that is in addition to outside third-party feeds entering the enterprise.
Others agree – Richard MacManus says, “Initiatives involving structuring or extending RSS will further push non-blog uses of RSS in the coming months.”
Bottom line: While blogging has brought RSS to the forefront, the myriad of other RSS uses will lead the Internet’s transformation towards the true Incremental Web.

David Beisel
April 11, 2005 · < 1  min.

RSS isn’t just for blogs. In fact, RSS is for so much more than blogs. Really Simple Syndication is a protocol that can and will be used for delivering any type of incremental content.

On the consumer end of things, there are so many pieces of information that users in the future will be able to receive on a timely basis – audio tracks, announcements about bestselling books, coupons or sales, relevant news articles, etc. The list is nearly endless. (Rok Hrastnik posted a great list of potential ideas of how RSS could be used for a marketing department communicating with its outside constituents.) User-generated microcontent is another great candidate for syndication through feeds. Already users can be updated on answers to questions like “Any good recipes for salad dressing?” and “What should I know about traveling in Australia?” at Helium Knowledge. As microcontent engines develop and evolve towards critical mass, these information nuggets will become increasingly relevant and timely for the end-user. And consumers won’t just receive RSS feeds on their PC, but also on any “connected” device, like mobile phones.

And in the enterprise, the number of use-cases is also lengthy. The NewsGator Enterprise product page suggests that corporate users will receive content from “applications, collaboration suites, content management systems, and portals.” All of that is in addition to outside third-party feeds entering the enterprise.

Others agree – Richard MacManus says, “Initiatives involving structuring or extending RSS will further push non-blog uses of RSS in the coming months.”

Bottom line: While blogging has brought RSS to the forefront, the myriad of other RSS uses will lead the Internet’s transformation towards the true Incremental Web.


David Beisel
Partner
I am a cofounder and Partner at NextView Ventures, a seed-stage venture capital firm championing founders who redesign the Everyday Economy.