RSS Tutorial

What is all the Fuss About?

Summary

There is a great deal of fuss about RSS.

The three major internet companies (Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft) are rapidly implementing RSS functionality.
Hundreds of RSS tools, products and services are available.
The tech Press and the regular media are publishing about RSS.
Major media companies are publishing using RSS.

This tutorial will explain what the fuss is all about, and how RSS can be helpful to subscribers, webmasters, and publishers.

Detail

RSS is being implemented at many levels by GYM (Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft), the triumvirate of major Internet companies.

Google

iGoogle Personalized Homepage: Personalize the Google homepage by adding selective content which is a set of RSS feeds.
Google Desktop Sidebar: The Google Desktop Sidebar has a feature called Web Clips which contains RSS Feeds.
Google Reader: The Google Reader is a service that aggregates RSS feeds.
Google Blog Search: The new Google blog search only includes sites that have RSS feeds.
Google Gmail: View your favorite RSS feeds right in Gmail as "Clips" along the top of your Gmail screen.

Yahoo

My Yahoo

My Yahoo personalizes the Yahoo portal with selected RSS feeds.

Yahoo RSS White Paper

Yahoo Published a White Paper entitled: RSS - Crossing into the Mainstream.

12% of the Internet population has heard the term RSS.
04% of the Internet population knowingly uses RSS.
27% of the internet population uses RSS but does not know that it is called RSS.

Yahoo Toolbar

The Yahoo Toolbar Quickly adds RSS feeds to My Yahoo!

Yahoo adds RSS support to Yahoo Alerts and Yahoo Mail

A Podtech podcast about the Yahoo introduction of RSS into Yahoo Alerts and Yahoo Mail with Scott Gatz, lead RSS manager, and Ethan Diamond, lead Yahoo! Mail manager.

Microsoft

Windows Live

Microsoft's Live portal has an RSS feed reader.

Microsoft Vista - the next version of Windows

Microsoft Vista presents UniveRSS - a 3D Vista RSS reader.

Microsoft RSS Feeds

MSDN is now providing RSS Feeds for many of its developer centers.

Microsoft Longhorn loves RSS

Microsoft started out calling their new version of Windows Longhorn. The Microsoft IE Blog: Longhorn loves RSS.

Microsoft gives RSS a big bear hug

The large Microsoft PDC (Professional Developers Conference) in 2005 included RSS news. Bill Gate's keynote address discussed RSS.

Vista has RSS built in.
Office 2007 has RSS capability.
Outlook 2007 can view RSS Feeds.
Internet Explorer 7 has RSS aggregating capability.
SharePoint can now read and write RSS.

"RSS is now a pillar of Microsoft's strategy to make loosely coupled client/server the preferred architecture to Web-based thin client computing."

RSS Tools

160+ RSS Tools, Tips, Resources and More: A comprehensive list of RSS articles, tutorials, software, directories, toolbars, FireFox extensions and readers.
UncleFeed RSS Portal: UncleFeed is an authority site on RSS technology, including RSS feeds search, RSS directory, RSS forum, information and RSS software tools.
RSS Tools: A list of RSS Tools by Category.

RSS Discussion

Dave Winer - RSS Blog: Dave Winer was the programmer who developed RSS; this is his blog about RSS.
Google Search for RSS Feeds: A Search for RSS Feeds yields over 200 million results.
Article on Syndisphere: Steve Gillmor argues it is no longer the Blogosphere based on blogs; it is the Syndisphere based on RSS feeds.
Feed for Thought: "How feeds will change the way content is distributed, valued, and consumed."

Just a few of the Major Media publishing RSS Feeds

There is obviously something major going on with RSS feeds. This tutorial will explain what the fuss is all about, and how RSS can be helpful to subscribers, webmasters, and publishers.