rss feeds and keeping members of an organisation up to date
By Chris Barton, of web design company www.cjb-i.co.uk
An organisation that I am both apart of and have done work for recently has been having problems with their email newsletter and announcements. The reason, they are sending out to much. The isp is not happy with the amount that goes out every day. This has made me start to think about how rss feeds should be utilised to send out news and announcements to members of an organisation.
What is rss?
rss provide web content or summaries of web content together with links to the full versions of the content, and other metadata. It facilitates syndication, web feeds allow a website's frequent readers to track updates on the site using an aggregator.
Why have an rss feed?
As apposed to email rss feeds send out changes made to a website such as a news update in a small headline format which the viewer can click to view the full story. This not only cuts out the need to send a separate email each time something new comes along, but also has uses less bandwidth than an email and only people who want to view it will do so.
Many websites are making use of rss feed from the BBC to ecommerce websites offering the latest deals and savings. I now have a page setup that delivers me the latest news from my most visited websites. I can check this twice a day and see what news is going on. Email is still crucial for important news or newsletters that go out maybe once a month, but people have so much email now that they often skip mail and leave it for later, which never comes.
Get your organisation an rss feed
This is going to be the way that most people are kept informed so start now and make sure your website for your organisation has an rss feed. visit www.cjb-i.co.uk if you would like to ask about getting an rss feed for your organisation.
