I am curious to know how many of you have heard of RSS and may be using an RSS Aggregator to receive blog and news feeds.

If you haven't heard of RSS, here is the Wikipedia definition taken from the link above:

RSS is a simple XML-based system that allows users to subscribe to their favorite websites. Using RSS, webmasters can put their content into a standardized format, which can be viewed and organized through RSS-aware software or automatically conveyed as new content on another website

Basically, RSS is a standardized format that allows content providers like web sites, blogs, etc., to publish new information, like this blog entry.

An RSS Aggregator is an application that will periodically download this information from a list of web sites that you define.  Items on this list are referred to as Subscriptions or Feeds.

Why is this technology so important? Well, it will help consolidate information you receive on a daily basis into a single location.  I currently subscribe to over 100 web site and blog feeds.  As you can imagine, that would take a tremendous amount of time to browse to each of those sites to see if anything new has been posted.  Using RSS, the new postings come to me.

When choosing an RSS aggregator, I really only had one criteria: I wanted it to integrate with Microsoft Outlook ( 2003 ). I really didn't want to have another application running just to get my news.

I have been using an aggregator from Attensa for about a year but the thing is so flaky and temperamental that I recently switched to NewsGator Inbox.  Both products have features that the other doesn't but I so far, I haven't had to worry about my newsreader maxing out my CPU when it has an issue with a feed.

NewsGator Inbox also has a neat feature called a NewsPage that is placed in the home folder where the RSS feeds are stored. It is a customizable web page that displays the latest feeds so that you don't have to navigate to individual folders to read new news.

Shortly, you may not have to have a separate application to subscribe to your RSS feeds. IE7 will support RSS and unless the feature has been removed, Outlook 2007 will as well.

And you're bothering me with this because???

Looking at the statistics of web traffic vs. RSS feeds subscriptions, I find that only about 10% of my readers are employing any type of RSS reader or aggregator. I thought I would mention the technology because it truly is a productivity aid and time saver.

Good luck and you have any questions, leave a comment.