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Friday, June 10, 2005

Things that make you say “Dude!”

I consider myself close to the cutting edge of computer and internet technology. I piece together my own computer hardware, fully customize the software, and have had a webpage since 1997. I tend to be the go-to guy for computer support in my social and family circles. But I’ll freely admit that today was the day I finally understood RSS.

RSS, or really simple syndication, is one of two competing technologies that allows news stories, blog posts, and other online content to be delivered as it is posted to anyone who wants to receive it. It can be delivered like an email via an RSS reader, delivered to email, or aggregated on a news page like My Yahoo (which is what I decided to do).

At any rate, the brilliance is customization. Google, Yahoo, MSN, and other web portals have all tried some level of customization to let users rearrange, add, and subtract content from their portal homepage. But there have always been limits. RSS removes the limits. Now I can have any content I want on My Yahoo. I can receive exactly the news stories I want – Minnesota Twins game wraps, green technology news, or the latest from The Onion.

I’ll stop myself since this post already reads like an advertisement for corporate names.

But take a minute or two to check out the power of RSS. If you have a blog, your readers can know the minute you post. If you just like to know the news, you can get the stories as they are published.

Dude!

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