RSS good or bad?

RSS is a method of collecting articles and information from sources that interest you without you having to search for them yourself. This concept is initially a way of cutting down time to deliver you with exactly what you want, when you want. There are more uses for RSS feeds than just supplying ones need of information.

They can be used to attract more people to one particular site due to its feed of information that might not have been integrated into the site initially. This then allows people to stumble upon other sites that they may not have gone on, if the feed hadn’t led them there, therefore acting as a promotional tool as well. Also if a website is low on content for whatever the reason, a feed can be a big boost to the websites hits, allowing for further exposure of his/her work or custom content.

However from a personal view it can have mixed results. When using an RSS feed for everyday leisure information, even when using it for creative research there are snags. The main one being the amount of unrelated information that is passed on through the feed, this is not always what you want. Especially if pressed for time, finding the information you are interested in could compete with you going via search engines as an alternative. Although this doesn’t occur too often, it is a minor setback to the technology.

In conclusion RSS is a good way of exposing yourself to topical information, as well as new and possibly influential data, but lacks the fine tuning to make it appeal to me over popular search engines. Where the search engine process, maybe slower, but can often find more exact information that is specific to my needs.