THINKeEXTENSION

Over the last 2 to 3 years (in some cases longer) more and more smart Extension Websites have been growing funny looking icons, like the one on the right. There are many variations of the image, but all these symbols mean one thing, RSS. RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication and true to it’s name it is simple. Simple but very very powerful and an essential feature of an effective Extension Website.

What is RSS?

RSS is a format that makes it easy to keep track of new web content. It’s like a stream of updates. Similar to the ticker tape feed of news headlines, that you might see on the bottom of a screen on a TV News show.

Before RSS if we wanted to track new content, news and other updates on a website. We would probably bookmark the site and check back on a regular basis. However if your Extension Website or any site for that matter is configured for RSS, visitors can subscribe to updates.

Once subscribed to an RSS feed, readers will be informed when new content is added without having to revisit the website.

Because RSS is more like grammar than a whole new computer language. It can be applied to all types of content; Blogs, Podcasts, updates to a Wiki, Photos, Videos, etc. Almost any web content as long as it is granular i.e. discreet units of data, it can usually be turned into an RSS feed. To receive or “catch” an RSS feed you can use an RSS Feed Reader, some websites also offer their RSS feed via email.

To catch an RSS feed you need an RSS Feed Reader.

An RSS Feed Reader is a bit like an email inbox, however instead of catching emails it catches feeds. Below is a screenshot of my Google Reader, a free and powerful tool that can rapidly provide an overview of news in your industry, your Agricultural or Environmental niche, or your sphere of interest.

There are a wide range of RSS Feed Readers available, however they fall mainly into 2 categories; Online and Desktop. An Online RSS Feed Reader is a bit like webmail, think hotmail, yahoo mail, gmail, etc, where you have a private webpage that you log into to read your feeds. Bloglines, A variation on the Online RSS Feed Reader is the Start Page which is your own personalized page that opens when you launch the internet on your computer. A Start page usually has a miriad of options for displaying feeds and other widgets. Some options include iGoogle, Pageflakes, and Netvibes.

Desktop RSS Feed Readers are applications that run on your own computer, think Outlook, Outlook Express Thunderbird, Mail. The great advantage of these applications is that you can download your feeds when you have internet access and read them when you don’t (although you won’t be able to click on any links. Also some sources publish only a summary of their feeds, without internet access you only be getting a snippet of the story). Desktop applications you might like to consider are FeedDemon (windows) RSSOwl (windows, mac, linux, solaris) NetNewsWire (mac).

There are of course many variations such as Feed Readers for mobile phones, email applications that incorporate RSS Feed Readers, browser based readers (Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Flock for example all have Feed Readers and all sorts of mashups. Wikipedia has an exhaustive list of all manner of RSS Feed Readers.

To recap briefly, an RSS feed is a stream of web content that can be subscribe to, aggregated, shared and shifted in many useful ways. Publishing your Extension content via an RSS feed will

• make it easier for your stakeholders and your target markets to subscribe to your content
• make it easier for your stakeholders and your target markets to share your content with peers
• you will be better able to monitor which content is being consumed and which is not
• it will consolidate all your content (text, images, audio, and video) into easy to follow stream
• it will make it easy for you mash up various components of your Extension Program in one or many rich media locations

How add an RSS to site requires more space then we have in this blog post, if you would like to know how. Can I suggest you subscribe to THINKeEXTENSION, there will be more on RSS over the next couple of weeks. You could also leave a comment below.

Not only does RSS provide all these benefit when publishing, getting to understand and use RSS will give you a powerful ability to listen to your industry or niche. Once you set us an RSS Feed Reader for yourself, you will be able to track knowledge sources, conversations and keywords related to your niche or industry. Within minutes of an authority in your industry announcing a breakthrough, you can be reading, listening to or watching an update.

Bottom line: If you are not currently publishing your Extension Content via RSS, then now is the time to start. If you are not using RSS to stay on top of what is happening in your industry, your niche, your specialty, then expect to be moving into the last to know group in your field.