RSS Feeds provide webmasters and content providers an avenue to provide concise summaries to prospective readers. Thousands of commercial web sites and blogs now publish content summaries in an RSS feed.

Everyday more and more websites, news services and blogs are adding RSS content. RSS is a method of syndicating content.The concept of aggregating content in one central location or repository is very appealing. Consumers have become tired of push technology, RSS allows users the flexibility to regain control of their content. RSS feed creators provide content without forcing it on consumers. In fact with RSS consumers are able to choose the content they wish to view.

Having heard the term previously but not having paid much attention most are just to afraid to show their ignorance and ask the question, what is a blog? Lets face it; the term blog does not conjure pleasant images. Blogs are web logs that are updated regularly, usually on a daily basis. They contain information related to a specific topic. In some cases blogs are used as daily diaries about people’s personal lives, political views, or even as social commentaries.

No matter if you call it “Really Simple Syndication” or “Rich Site Summary,” RSS is definitely all the rage right now online. With email filtering, IP blocking and the newest “Can Spam Act,” everyone’s scampering for a better way to get their messages across to their subscribers.

Why Should I care about RSS Feeds SPAM and viruses have wreaked havoc with a communication medium and reduced its value. Users have become admittedly paranoid about privacy issues and have begun “tuning out” and mentally filtering mail. What this means is that vendors really ought to begin exploring alternatives means of communciation in order to be heard. One of these alternatives is RSS or Really Simple Syndication.

RSS is just another language of the web, but you can actually completely ignore the code itself, just like you can ignore the source code behind web pages that you visit – you are only interested in the end product that the code is designed to produce for you, the end user.

It seems like everyone is talking about RSS Feeds. They’ve been around for years but the buzz is up about them as the technology continues to go mainstream. Some people are reportedly abandoning their browsers and viewing the web through their readers – but they hardly represent the general public yet.

Now, where you would normally type a URL, type your keyword, or if you know a site has a feed but don’t know the address, type in the home page. Advanced users can also click on the Import feature to import feeds through their .OPML file. You can display up to 50 feeds per page, but there does not appear to be a limitation on how many feeds you can include in Yahoo.

When I first discovered that you could get into Yahoo’s RSS Feed directory so quickly, I started making a lot of observations about their site. The first thing I noticed is that they made some subtle changes to their search page. That same day, I noticed that certain sites have more information in their listings than others.