RSS Is The Real Answer To Many Needs If You Use It

The following is a summary of some of the points made by Craig Cahill in his article 8 reasons to RSS.

RSS is the next mainstream medium
You either love it or you don't understand it. If you live or work online, you've at least heard of it. I describe it to newbies as a "variation of email updates" and it is, for both the reader and the writer. My name is Craig; I'm an RSS addict.

Being "addicted" to RSS might sound ridiculous, but I'm not addicted to the act of RSSing, I'm addicted to the benefits of RSSing. And here are 8 of them:

1. RSS is like a endless supply of the "Hottest 100 Industry Tips Ever".
If someone offered you the latest tips, the greatest freebies, the best how-tos, the Top-5 Top-5s of all time and the most important, industry-relevant news flashes ever, would you want them? You can learn nearly everything you need to know online these days. Using RSS, I subscribe to some key websites that hand-deliver me content, tips and news that I would pay good money for. It is possible to surf and search the web to find some of these articles, but it's impossible to do it on the scale that RSS allows you to.

2. RSS is free
RSS is free.

3. RSS is like SpeedPPC of the news world
We would all love the ability to do a day's work in a few minutes of real time. And keeping up with any industry can really take its toll on your productivity. So being able to consume my entire industry's daily news in the smallest time-frame possible is something that I've become totally dependent on. With the power of RSS I can scan the headlines of 1,000 articles, read those that interest me and ignore the ones that don't, all in 10 or 20 minutes. I'm always up-to-date, quickly.

4. Google Reader
Rarely is a tool enough of a benefit to warrant undertaking some entirely new technology. Introducing Google Reader. Now I'm not writing this to sell you a tool (especially considering it's free anyway), but Google Reader is so much more than "just" an RSS tool. When you discover a single tool that does the job of several other tools combined, you throw those other tools straight into the web 2.0 trash pile. Using Google's RSS reader I can bookmark, tag, email, back up, share and publish/republish articles with a single mouse click (or shortcut key for you keyboard ninjas). Google Reader is an all-in-one power tool.

5. RSS is the next mainstream medium
This is not entirely true, yet. Especially with the current communication "fads" like Twitter and Facebook hogging the "fad" headlines. But their longevity is as questionable as their suggested worth. With these fads you spend more time accepting "friend requests" and telling the world what you're "going to do", rather than actually doing anything. RSS is a productive platform that will stand the test of time.

RSS is that automatic, maintenance-free tool you've always wanted
Where email relies on the traditional "send and receive" format, RSS is more automated and less formal. Whether you send RSS content, or receive RSS feeds, it's all automatic. It involves minimal setup and maintains itself.

To read the full article please go to Allan Gardyne's AssociatePrograms.com site.