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Today's enterprise employees have more information at their fingertips than at any point in history.
According to the Online Computer Library Center, the number of distinct Web sites grew from 2.8 million in 1998 to more than 9 million by 2002, when they stopped keeping track. When you consider that these sites consist of billions of pages and then factor in millions of Weblogs, workers are faced with an information-glut of mythical proportions. While this information can certainly help companies track competition, understand markets and trends, and gather more information than ever believed possible, how can a large group, much less an individual, be able to keep up with the volume?
One way is with RSS, an XML specification for content syndication, which allows you to subscribe to the information you want to see and get notified anytime new information is available. What's more, companies can take advantage of the simplicity of the RSS specification to feed information inside and outside the firewall. For instance, companies can set up internal RSS feeds for employees on subjects such as the latest changes in the Human Resources portal or updates of concern to individual departments or projects or, rather than sending an email newsletter to customers, you could provide the same information as an RSS feed. In both of these examples, organizations provide information only to the parties that are truly interested, subsequently relieving some of the pressure on clogged email inboxes, which up until now have been the de facto information collection center.
This article introduces RSS and looks at some ways companies are using it in the enterprise.
WHAT IS RSS?
The RSS acronym has a number of meanings, but it has come to be aptly defined as Really Simple Syndication. According to Chris Pirillo, who runs Lockergnome's RSS Resource (a site devoted to all things RSS), it is an XML specification used to describe how to display content (also known as a feed) in a piece of software called a news aggregator. Content providers write their feed according to this RSS specification and people can subscribe to the feed using the news aggregation software. News aggregators (See sidebar) come in a variety of styles including desktop clients, Web-based services, and even one that...