More on RSS

I wrote a few days ago about starting to use an RSS aggregator. I've been adding lots of sites to my list of favourites, and I'm already finding that if a site doesn't provide an RSS feed then I'm much less likely to go back to see if there's anything new. It's only taken a few days for this change in my attitude to occur.

I may or may not be a typical web user, but if I am, then sites which don't annouce updates will be left behind, and possibly those that don't update regularly will also lose out.

That should not be seen as a reason for sites to add updates just for the sake of it, since that would devalue the whole process. Rather, it suggests that there will be a responsibility for content managers to concentrate on up-to-date, meaningful content. This may have to be at the expense of unusual or complex design.

There is a long way to go, however, before the process of RSS feeds is widely understood and incorporated into browsers. One way might be for the browser to ask the user, when a site is added to a favourites list, whether he/she wishes to add it to an inbuilt RSS aggregator. Google (surprise, surprise) is working on just such a reader. I've not tried Google's offering, but I've read some disgruntled comments from people who have.