RSS Standards Evolving to Suit More Robust Enterprise Needs
RSS, known alternatively as RDF Site Summary or Really Simple Syndication, is the publishing format used to facilitate the syndication of weblogs and other sources of content such as news feeds. Its beauty lies in its high degree of simplicity, which allows content to be aggregated from a myriad of personal and professional sources with near-zero IT hassles. According to InfoWorld, though, the very success of RSS in supporting increasingly professional uses is placing pressure on the bearers of the highly unofficial standards for RSS to provide extensions that will allow for the transport of more sophisticated content sources as well. The leading proponents of RSS extension in the public realm is the Atom project, which has drafted a fairly comprehensive framework, including plans for support of content licensing, security, categorization, identity management, and so on. Devising an official standard for RSS may accelerate its use by institutions and publishers for more sophisticated content, but with the heart of RSS acceptance based on highly independent players, its possible that these influences would stifle the very sources that RSS is meant to support. Ensuring one easily deployed method for content of all kinds is the key to enduring RSS success, and may make rapid independent standards development a necessary factor to ensure wide acceptance.