Scarlett Consulting

Scarlett Letter #41: RSS feeds; alerts; readers—you’d be crazy not to use these tools!

Just yesterday, I (again) had the experience of conversing with someone who said to me, “Oh yes, I read all of your published articles; in fact, I often visit your website to read the latest.” And then when I ask, “Have you subscribed to my blog?” or even “What blogs are you reading regularly?”, I often get a blank stare for a moment.
Please note, it’s not that I’m saying one absolutely 100% must use blogs as a trusted newsource. However, using a comprehensive reader system (explained below) will greatly help you to keep focused and get the things that you want, delivered effortlessly to you.
Now, since YOU are reading this post, you more than likely receive it through an RSS feed that you have set up for yourself (Yay for you!) And you also likely realize that when using a tool such as google reader, not only can you subscribe to RSS feeds and organize them to the nth degree, but you are also able to set up google alerts that will inform you of anything published on the internet about a particular topic. {Uh, I don’t know, maybe silly minor things such as your biggest competitors, your current clients, your hottest pursuits, entitites that drive trends or set regulations within your market sectors,….you get the point.} Alerts allow you to sit back and let technology do the down-and-dirty information gathering for you…delivered in clean little packages (aka folders) on your computer for you to read at your convenience. No spam, no junk, only relevant stuff that you want to know about.
Thanks to the Austrailian-based firm Wiliam Web Design, I will share with you their own fantastic description of RSS—what it does, how it works, and why one would be crazy not to set it up for himself. Please do pass this along to all of your colleagues who are not yet enlightened on the efficiency and thoroughness of using a reader system.  Assure them if they just spend a couple of hours setting it up just the way they want it (including organizing folders according to key categories such as clients, prospects, competitors, resources, organizations, etc), that they will be oh-s0-happy in the long run.

From Wiliams:

What is RSS?

RSS stands for “Really Simple Syndication” and is a new way to publish information online using XML. RSS allows users to subscribe to a website (and even specific channels within a website; e.g. sport, movies, business) to receive new and updated content, without being required to revisit the website. Almost all major newspaper websites provide subscription via RSS.

So what is it exactly?

Think of a RSS Feeds as a pipe of information. Coming down the pipe is alerts to new content. It could be just a summary of a new article for example. Depending on the end users reader, the feed will be displayed differently. i.e. one reader might just publish a title, while others publish an extract of the article. Each reader is different, this is discussed later on in this article.

So what can be published via RSS?

The short answer is just about anything. The most common content being published via RSS is articles, blogs, images, video content, music, podcasts, sporting results, product listings and much more.

Subscribing to an RSS Feed.

RSS gives viewers control over receiving information they want without revealing information about themselves. Unlike subscribing to an e-mail newsletter, viewers never have to give out their e-mail address with an RSS feed. That avoids the possibility of receiving spam or unwanted junk e-mail. It’s one of the reasons RSS is so attractive

RSS Readers

To read an RSS Feed, you’ll need something called a RSS reader. This is a piece of software that checks the feeds and lets you read any new articles that have been added. There are many different versions, some of which are accessed using a browser, and some of which are downloadable applications.

Online Solutions (webpages)

Many users use online RSS Readers to view their news, often making it their homepage. These online solutions include ;

Offline Solutions (applications and browsers )

The RSS readers like Outlook treat an RSS Feed as an account, and the articles are formatted just like they were emails. In the Browsers they are referred to as “live bookmarks” (as they update).