BBC Opens An Authoritative RSS Primer
By Shel Holtz
Expert Author
Article Date: 2006-01-12
Complain all you like about how the bastions of old media don't get the world of social media.
There's at least one bastion that gets it in a big way. The BBC-British Broadcasting Corporation-was an early adopter of several Web 2.0 technologies, notably podcasting. The venerable British broadcaster has recently opened a site dedicated to explaining RSS to the masses. If old-guard companies with huge audiences (which pretty well defines the BBC) promote RSS like this, it won't be too long before it's no longer the province of geeks and gearheads.
The site, called FeedFactory, offers simple, plain-language explanations of the steps required to use RSS feeds (what are feeds? what can I do with feeds? How do I use feeds?). "FeedFinder" offers a variety of feeds in simple categories like entertainment, news, sport and lifestyle. The site also features recommended feeds.
Offering something similar to your company's audiences-containing lists of feeds that would be of interest to them-is a great way to moving beyond the nobody-knows-what-RSS-is stage and getting it popularized so everybody can take advantage of it.
About the Author:
Shel Holtz is principal of Holtz Communication + Technology which focuses on helping organizations apply online communication capabilities to their strategic organizational communications.
As a professional communicator, Shel also writes the blog a shel of my former self.
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