If you use a home page like Yahoo or MSN or some other portal you've probably noticed that there are a variety of ways to configure the page to show you relevant information - new headlines, weather, stock quotes, sports scores, etc.
Typically the news options include a few sources here and there, local and national, etc. However, now there is growing adoption of a new way to provide highly customized and focused news to everyone called RSS, which sometimes means Really Simple Syndication among other things. It basically formats the news in a simple way to enable it be be read by any web page or application that understands RSS.
What this means is that you will no longer be limited to selecting from two or three news sources - you can select from millions of news sources that support RSS - maybe your hometown paper, maybe a newsletter or blog that discusses a specific topic (Digital Dad?). or maybe just the New York Times.
Today you can read RSS news sources through one of many newsreaders - offline ones line NewsGator that works inside Outlook, or web based ones like BlogLines. If you put your mouse over the XML logo in the left column of this page you will see a list of newsreaders that you can add a Digital Dad subscription to.
Without much fuss Yahoo began to support RSS feeds a short time ago. You can now add any RSS feed to your "My Yahoo" home page (see the button on the upper left column of this page). This is a big deal because it brings RSS news feeds to the masses, rather than just the "blogerati" and tech folks who play with stuff like that. It's still in beta but I suspect that once rolled out, Yahoo will use RSS for the vast majority of content on My Yahoo.
In the near future you'll see RSS feeds anywhere you get electronic news information - on your phone, in your car, in a picture frame or on your fridge. This levels the playing field and enables even the smallest news outlet to have their message just as accessible as the Washington Post. It also enables you to get highly specific information based on what you really want to know and not just from a list of choices determined by someone else. Cool.
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