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http://www.nytimes.com/ref/technology/circuits/03basi.html

On the World Wide Web, people can track political polemics, movie starmalapropisms and financial fiascos. The trouble is, hopping from siteto site in search of the latest Mel Gibson bon mot can waste hours. Nowthere's a tool that promises to automatically capture just theinformation you want, when you want, from the Web.Called R.S.S. (the initials are variously said to stand for RichSite Summary, Really Simple Syndication and more obscure formulations),this increasingly popular online tool turns a morass of disparateinformation sources into an automatically generated and neatlyorganized index of the latest articles and postings.

Based on a programming language (XML, or eXtensible Markup Language)already used to create many Web sites, R.S.S. enables Internetdevelopers to post short site summaries describing recently added orupdated items and links. Those postings are then scanned automaticallyby programs called R.S.S. readers to deliver specializednews-wire-style "feeds" to interested readers. These feeds, or newschannels, are like personally tailored executive summaries containingdozens or even hundreds of headlines on a specific topic.

R.S.S. may sound suspiciously like the derided Pointcast service ofthe mid-1990's. Pointcast was a "push" application that broadcast aprogrammed and seemingly endless stream of headlines and advertisingover the Internet. It tied up corporate networks and slowed personalcomputers. So it wasn't long before users got tired of being pushedaround and dropped the service.

R.S.S. avoids Pointcast's pitfalls because it lets individualsrequest the information when they want it. The R.S.S. readers can beset to check for news every few minutes or every few days - or turnedoff completely. If a topic or R.S.S. news feed about Donald Rumsfeldbegins to bore you, all you have to do is delete the channel. And withtoday's high-speed broadband connections, R.S.S. programs can scan fornew items without hampering your work. They even work well over slowerdial-up connections.

Feeders and Readers

Not every Web site offers an R.S.S. feed yet, but large news organizations like The New York Times(www.nytimes.com) and CNN (www.cnn.com) offer specific R.S.S. channelscatering to interests ranging from movies to technology. There areforeign-language R.S.S. news feeds, too, and countless personal Web logupdates that turn individuals into Internet syndicators.

R.S.S. can be used to track any information that changes frequently, from stock quotes to best-seller lists. Amazon has a welter of R.S.S. feeds featuring everything from top-selling folk music to popular dolls.

R.S.S. feeds also have the potential to serve more seriousinterests. There is an R.S.S. channel for information on missingchildren (www.teamamberalert.net) and several channels devoted tobreast cancer news. Narrowly focused channels are also cropping up formedical specialties, like one for somnoplasty (a treatment for upperairway obstructions and severe cases of snoring).

To tap into this new font of information, all that is needed is anR.S.S. reader program to open the spigot. Dozens of reader programs arecurrently available. Some can be downloaded at no charge, while moreelaborate readers with extensive customization settings charge for thesoftware.

One of the simplest R.S.S. readers is the Dogpile Search Tool,available free from www.dogpile.com. The downloadable toolbar can beinstalled directly in Windows Internet Explorer and, as the namesuggests, includes a search tool as well as an R.S.S. reader.

Dogpile's program creates a small ticker window in the browser todisplay a running list of the latest headlines from the R.S.S. site ofyour choosing. Click on a title as it scrolls by and the full articlepops open in a separate browser window. The ticker can only show oneR.S.S. feed at a time, however. To see all of your selected newschannel updates, you have to go to a personalized contents page listingall of your channel subscriptions.

For inveterate news followers who want to manage an extensive rangeof R.S.S. sources, a better choice is NewsDesk (www.wildgrape.net).This free stand-alone Windows program uses a format that closelyparallels those of popular e-mail programs. Channels are organized as alist of folders down the left side with headlines presented in anopposite facing pane. A third panel is used to display entire articleswhen desired. NewsDesk also tells readers when an article was postedand lets users specify how often each R.S.S. source should be checked,from once a month to every five minutes. Particularly helpful are morethan 60 preinstalled news channels ranging from The Christian ScienceMonitor's Living section to articles from The Hindu, one of India'snational newspapers.

If you want to integrate R.S.S. news into your e-mail program, thereis NewsGator ($29; www.newsgator.com). It works in conjunction with Microsoft'spopular Outlook program and is ideal for business users. NewsGatortreats news feeds as e-mail, sorting, searching, organizing andforwarding items as the need arises. There is also a monthly $5.95subscription service that can coordinate your news feeds across severaldevices - say, a cellphone, a home PC and an office computer - so thatyou never inadvertently read the same headline twice. It can even bedirected to send traffic information only to your cellphone and movienews to your home computer.

The most promising NewsGator subscription feature, however, is itsability to create special channels or "watches" based on keywords.Create a watch for a name or topic and NewsGator will scour everyavailable R.S.S. source to find your quarry. While this may be fun forthe obsessive, it has a more practical application: in seconds,businesses can find the latest information on competitors, a task thatcould take hours to accomplish when using a conventional search site.

Growing Pains

R.S.S. may become an invaluable Web tool, but at the moment thereare still a few kinks to work out. To add R.S.S. channels, for example,you have to look at Web sites for orange buttons labeled R.S.S. or XML.After you click on the button, you usually have to cut and paste theaddress of the feed into the reader software. Some reader programs cangrab some feeds automatically, but it's hit or miss. Furthermore,finding new R.S.S. sources takes time.

The best approach is to visit special sites that list R.S.S.syndicators. The largest ones include Synidic8.com (www.syndic8.com),which has an extensive listing of R.S.S. blogs; Newsisfree(www.newsisfree.com), which also creates its own R.S.S. feeds fromvarious sites; and Moreover (www .moreover.com), an R.S.S. company thathas created scores of business-oriented channels.

As more sites adopt R.S.S., there is the potential for a new kind ofinformation overload. Subscribe to enough R.S.S. feeds and you'llquickly find yourself consuming hours reading all the headlines andsummaries. On the other hand, a tool is only as good as its owner'sjudgment. So if you can control yourself, you may find that R.S.S. isthe best tool yet for taming the Web.

I've noticed the R.S.S. link at various sites but didn't click on it. This stuff sounds pretty involved (or complicated) for me to use. But I can see why some folks might love it!

Its actually a lot easier than it sounds, but you need to get into it. If you check your sites daily, this is a redundancy.

I have R.S.S. feeds. There is some redundancy but, I like the information coming to me via email. Saves me a lot of surfing time.

goandersen at 04:41PM on Sep 08, 2009

I have R.S.S. feeds. There is some redundancy but, I like the information coming to me via email. Saves me a lot of surfing time.

RSS feeds are useful.