This time around, push technology gets nudge it needs
I remember well the enormous hype surrounding “push technology.” The idea was to broadcast information to computer users much as e-mail is sent. Entrepreneurs raised hilariously large sums of money to make it happen.
Push collapsed in the dot-com bust, for awhile. But the burst of energy surrounding Web logging (blogging) over the past few years has now converged with news-reading tools for a new kind of information push. The difference this time around has been the de facto standardization of a set of open instructions, known as RSS (Really Simple Syndication). This allows blogs and news readers (the software, not you) to communicate with each other without irritating us half to death.
Relying on RSS, a news-reader application checks at defined intervals with any number of blogs or Web sites to which you have subscribed. A title and summary of new entries are sent to your news reader; you don’t have to go to the site yourself. If your curiosity is satisfied, you’re done. Or, you can click to route your browser to the blog or site that sent you the update and read the whole item there. (Though somewhat similar in concept, e-mail and news-reader applications are different animals entirely).
It sounds simple, but actually RSS isn’t quite simple enough. The subscription process needs just a bit more transparency to satisfy Mom or Granddad. But, as computers go, this is already a lot better than “not bad.”
At its most obvious, RSS brings the world of news and information to your door. This may be only the beginning. In principle, just about anything at all can be broadcast this way, including graphics, audio and, soon, video. Syndication blends broadcasting (to many) and “narrowcasting” (to you). It saves the Web from pushing data to millions of people who aren’t interested in the same stuff. Think … spam.
Less obvious for now is RSS’s impact in areas like education. Syndication-and-subscription can be used to send “knowledge” of all kinds to audiences seeking instruction or help. Not only can the teacher communicate with a student, but the student’s blog also can send information to the teacher.
We are about halfway into the technology-adoption phase of RSS. Media companies such as Reuters, the BBS, ESPN and the New York Times already use it. Google and others are said to be exploring the possibility of sending ads alongside subscribed information. Hey, nothing’s perfect —if we don’t want to pay directly for high-quality content that costs millions to assemble, we’ll have to submit to promotions.
Now, about those news-reader tools: I suggest you start with this engaging introduction to the subject by one of the Web’s top technical sources, Lockergnome: (http://channels.locker gnome.com/rss/resources/articles/quickstart.phtml).
Having turned to the Macintosh over the past few years, I can’t give you a specific recommendation for Windows. My tool of choice on the Mac, by far, is NewsNetWire. The “lite” version of this product is free: (http://ranchero.com/netnewswire/). Lockergnome’s own recommendation for PCs, BlogExpress, will work just fine to get you started there: (http://usablelabs.com/productBlogExpress.html). It’s also free.
The Web browser vendors are just beginning to realize that RSS integration is an obvious feature extension. The first major product to offer this is Opera ( http://www.opera.com/). It won’t be the last. In fact, it will soon be possible to display full-blown Web pages within the news readers themselves.
I could tell you all the ways that RSS fails to give us what we really want. To name one, even with summaries, how do we cope with 100 or 500 subscriptions? Inquiring minds are hard at work on that one, dreaming up clever filtering schemes.
Meanwhile, why not let most of your news, sports, weather and opinion-mongering come to you? RSS actually is really simple.