For a while now, I’ve been experimenting with RSS news aggregators. If you haven’t discovered this technology yet, you should. RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication. An RSS-enabled Web site uses specially formatted pages (using XML, for those who care about the technical details), to create news “feeds.” Using an RSS aggregator – a program that checks the contents of RSS feeds at regular intervals – you can subscribe to those Web sites. Currently, many major news sites, including Yahoo News, Wired News, and CNET, use RSS. So do lots of bloggers. (I’ve added an RSS feed to my site, even.)
I’ve tried SharpReader, which is an impressive three-pane Windows program, and NewsGator, which works inside Outlook. In fact, I’m posting this note from inside Outlook, using NewsGator. Will it work? You tell me.
You can read technical details about RSS here or get a wide sampling of articles here. Warning: RSS feeds can be addictive!
Ed Bott 