RSS NeXT

RSS and blogging is slowly taking the internet by storm. One can see the orange icons providing RSS feeds on a number of websites (Yahoo, BBC) today. Companies are inventing ways to make use of RSS feeds. As more people move towards RSS, RSS readers and enabling technologies will become a major utility for accessing content.

Today RSS feeds are published mainly in the way a publisher provides them. They reflect the way a particular publisher publishes content, much like the content they publish on their respective website. RSS aggregators mere aggregate these feeds and provide only a basic search facility. As the number of RSS feeds increase, a user will be faced with the same daunting task of which information to see and when? RSS just moves the information overload problem to the next level.

As we move ahead with RSS embracing semantic web technologies, software programs will become a lot more sophisticated. These should be able to aggregate and provide specific content to the users according to their needs, interests and context.

What is needed is a more sophisticated service, which not only just provides a user accurate information, but prioritizes it, provides recommendations, enables sharing of ideas with other like minded people acting like a shared memory and is personalised. A service which could very easily link up an individual's interests with the vast resources available on the internet irrespective of the user's environment.