I stumbled upon
this video about RSS this morning (while, coincidentally, scanning my Bloglines RSS feeds for items for this morning’s Online Publishing Update) on Scott Karp's Publishing 2.0 blog.
Karp wrote, "The irony of the video
RSS in Plain English is that it is simultaneously one of the clearest and most engaging explanations of RSS I have ever seen and also a vivid demonstration of why RSS has not gone mainstream — how can something that takes 3.5 minutes to explain be a killer app?"
Karp’s right. It always takes me either a few minutes to explain RSS or to show it to someone. So now you can just send RSS inquirers
this video instead. The video, from
CommonCraft, is worth watching, even if you already get RSS.
And while you’re passing things along… We have some
recently released items on RSS on The Digital Edge, both from the Newspaper Association of America.
Here’s the promo:
How can newspapers retain their significance in a world of consumer-selected media delivery? How will the Internet change when the Web isn’t where you read content, but merely where you “subscribe” to have it sent to you, or to search for something.
See the first phase report on how RSS is changing the Web. You can also read the first column, which summarizes goals of this project & provides on overview of the initial findings. A second report with new RSS information is also available. Newspaper digital media executives’ primary objective in syndicating content via RSS is to extend and grow their audience. That conclusion is based on a fall 2006 survey of 71 executives (out of 718 solicited).
Also, check out the following other resources: a FAQ on RSS and a link to del.icio.us tags of other excellent resources on RSS.