An RSS feed called Newsgator is the subject of an interesting article in a recent eWeek. First introduced to use with blogs–to allow people to copy a piece of code into their site and have your blog entries appear there–RSS feeds have been tough to use as enterprise tools because they worked only on individual machines.
Now a new product called NewsGator Online Services lets you make a personalized collection of news(RSS) feeds viewable from any computer anywhere–in your hotel, home, work, on a Mac or Windows, etc. You get all the information you want, when you want it, without being tied to a single machine. Business people are heading toward using this idea instead of subscribing to newsletters–keeps their inboxes clear for direct communications requiring quick attention on current work items.
Author Brian Livingston says some companies are getting excited about using RSS instead of email for workgroups that have to communicate frequently. Saves everyone the time of prioritizing every item that comes into the inbox–a process that cuts into the productive time of every person in business today.
Here’s what a VP of product development at a software company says: “The nice thing about web logging is it does sort discussions into topics,” says Mark Madsen of Network Clarity. “Unlike unstructured discussion groups from the past, XML and RSS allow us to slice and dice those discussions, search them, and attach other information and responses.”
Hurry, hurry, hurry. Blogging is going mainstream, folks.