What is RSS Good For?
Dave Winer, the individual most associated with RSS, has a three-word answer when asked what RSS is good for: “automated web surfing.” This sums things up very well. He goes on to say, “It gets you more news for the time you put into using the Internet. If you don’t want more news, then RSS is probably not for you. But if there are subjects that you are intensely interested in, and if the people covering the topics also offer the information in RSS, then your computer (or a Web site) can make web surfing a richer and perhaps more productive experience.” J.D. Lasica famously referred to RSS as “news that comes to you”, and Jo Twist memorably compared RSS feeds to a sushi restaurant conveyor belt for content. The idea of “syndication” of content is also key to understanding what RSS does. Dennis recently wrote: “With RSS and a news aggregator, each of the new posts from the blogs I care about automatically appears on my computer in an organized, easy-to-read-and-manage way in a news aggr
