Sometimes A Really Simple Solution Is Good Enough

Really Simple Syndication (RSS) has become an enormously successful technology in the consumer market. The popularity of RSS is largely attributed to the ease in which it provide consumers with a flexible method of discovering, subscribing, aggregating and monitoring content and media across a multitude of Internet sources. RSS-related tools and services enable users to customize and manage subscriptions to suite their own interest areas and lifestyle needs. Such phenomena has not gone unnoticed by enterprise strategists, many of whom are exploring RSS (and related tools) as a means to optimize communication channels and alleviate information overload and underload concerns of users. 

Based on a publish/subscribe syndication model, RSS enables organizations to make various information sources available as “feeds”. Feeds could be general in nature, targeting a broad audience (e.g., company news headlines, HR job postings), or tailored towards a particular business activity (e.g., competitive intelligence, project status reports) or defined to suit the needs of a specific role (e.g., sales managers forecasts, clinical news for researchers). While feeds may seem to diminish the value of users interacting directly with portals or other aggregation mechanisms that might be deployed (e.g., content management systems, workspaces), that is not the case. Users simply do no have the time to repeatedly visit multiple content and media sources to identify updates and filter-out items of interest. RSS enables users to define and maintain a peripheral connection between themselves and an information source, thus preserving their attention capabilities by focusing it to items contain in the feed. 

This is a key point. Users have historically been frustrated with either too much information, too little information, information that is not timely or information that is not relevant. No singular tool is likely to solve all problems associated with the information overload and underload. Instead, users will apply a variety of techniques that provide multiple sensors, connections and pathways to a given information source. Users can avail themselves to RSS to help manage their attention towards media and information that is relevant to them in some manner. In this regard, RSS functions as a sensor/connection/pathway mediation tool. Content and media providers in turn must ensure that their sources are locatable, navigable and retrievable for users to easily consume (via RSSS) in the context of whatever activity they are engaged in. The bi-directional cooperation between information consumer and provider enables narrowcast streams of content and media to compliment other interaction models (e.g., portals, e-mail, workspaces). This multifaceted approach towards making information valuable for users is the essence of what Peter Morville alludes to in his book, “Ambient Findability”.

The potential synergy between RSS and enterprise content and collaboration technologies has not gone unnoticed by major software vendors. RSS is being incorporated into a wide range of products and services delivered by large (i.e., IBM and Microsoft), and small (e.g., Attensa, KnowNow, and NewsGator) vendors alike. Given that RSS is already being used by employees for personal use or under-the-radar-screen to support various business activities, as well as the inevitability of RSS becoming part of general collaboration and content infrastructure at some point over the next three years, IT organizations need to understand and prepare now for RSS-based applications and supporting infrastructure.

Comments

[Scott Mark]

Mike -

I think RSS is a very enterprise-ready syndication format, and it's value shouldn't go unnoticed by large vendors, who seem to have been paying more attention to WS-* interfaces, JSR 168 portlets, etc. We have been using RSS for a few years to consume information from outside systems, and I think it's great glue.

Sometimes what appears Good Enough is actually Best! ;-)

Scott

[Mike Gotta]

Thanks Scott. My overview document does conclude that RSS can be very helpful within enterprise environments. There are some aspects that need to be monitored (as with any technology) around the standard, alternatives (e.g., Atom), different implementation techniques (does the vendor support the upcoming Windows RSS Platform Common Feed List for synching across applications, does the vendor support the Attachment Execution Service in Windows to connect to security vendors, does the vendor support RFC 3229 for incremental feed updates) as well as user experience styles (via a browser, e-mail client, dedicated RSS Reader). So no silver bullet but definately worth exploring and piloting.