The Perfect Solution to a Problem You Don't Have

RSS provides a great solution to a problem that a lot of people don't have. That's why it's a slow burner - there just aren't billions of people out there suffering - waiting for RSS to arrive and take their pain away.

The pain that it takes away is very particular - it's the waste of time involved with repeatedly checking websites for updates. A year ago I had maybe 20 bookmarked sites that I'd visit regularly - each morning - a bit like reading the daily papers. Some would update frequently, and I'd miss new information or be late getting it. Others would update sporadically, maybe only once a week, so 6 out of 7 visits would be unnecessary. There was a limit to how many sites I could check like that - that was part of the pain too. And I gradually became aware of those little orange buttons that said 'RSS' and soon the pain was enough that I sought out a solution.

. . . this is the way everyone will be getting their news in 5 years time - The geeks know it, the venture capitalists do too.

It was so very easy - I download an RSS aggregator, SharpReader - I told it about my favourite sites (feeds) - when I want to find out if there is any new content, I can just click 'refresh' on the interface and it checks all the sites for new material.

I've no doubt that this is the way everyone will be getting their news in 5 years time. The geeks know it, the venture capitalists do too. RSS feeds aren't just for tech geeks - they're for everyone who has a favourite columnist in a newspaper, but doesn't necessarily like to read the whole paper. They're for everyone who wants to keep up to date with the information they're interested in without having to work hard to do it - and in the information age, pretty soon that's going to be all of us.

Posted by Alexander at October 4, 2005 05:31 AM

Make Flash tests and assessments with the Question Writer, Quiz Software. Question Writer 4 is now available. Click here to download.