The concepts of Syndication and, in particular, the RSS file format have been gaining prominence over the past few years. Many experts consider this one of the "next big things" on the World Wide Web, and there are certainly some big names supporting it. But what is it and, most importantly, what does it mean for you?

Syndication has traditionally refered to the practice of one media company distributing a news article to other companies for their publication. It still retains this meaning, although there are some differences between how most web syndication systems approach the problem, and how it has been traditionally handled.

The first difference is that the content itself is not usually distributed - just information about what stories are available, usually the title and a brief summary of the content. This then links to the full article. The second difference is that this information is usually (but not always) freely distributed, although there may be charges associated with the full article itself.

RSS is a popular format used for distributing some syndication information. It is based on the generic XML file format, and uses concepts introduced in the Semantic Web initiative. Originated by Netscape as part of my.netscape.com, it was designed to encourage outside publishers to make their data available through their portal. Since then, it has been adopted by a number of different initiatives, particularly the weblog community, as a way to distibute their content.

What RSS stands for is something of a controversy, however. It is believe that originally it stood for "RDF Site Summary". Some now call it "Really Simple Syndication", while others insist that it doesn't stand for anything. Whatever its called, RSS represents a way to summarize the headlines on a site, and provides a standard format to syndicate this summary.

RSS was first popularized among a technical group, so the earliest feeds tended to cater to this group: sites such as slashdot.org and DVDReview.com release their news headlines through RSS. The technical book publisher O'Reilly and Associates has adopted RSS in its Meercat project, and is a strong supporter of the protocol.

Headlines from more mainstream sources have become available, including CNN and the BBC. There are even some local NBC television affiliates who distribute links to video clips through RSS feeds.

Currently, there are tens of thousands of sources for information provided through RSS. Grass-roots reporters are using journaling systems and RSS to distribute very local news, message boards are distributing updates via RSS, and even political groups and religious institutions are sending out notices using RSS.

Although originally designed for centralized news portals, most people reading RSS feeds use them through local news aggregators or blogging tools such as Radio Userland or NetNewsWire. Increasingly, we are seeing it "return to its roots" through news portals such as My Yahoo!

This base may just be the tip of the iceberg, however. The tools to use RSS are embedded in blog authoring software, which has a strong social component. It is quite common to see the most technical people rapidly spread this technology to less technical friends and family. People are beginning to adopt RSS the same way they adopted the Web eight years ago.

While RSS was designed for news headlines, and continues to be good for this purpose, it is well suited for other types of data that fits into a "headline" format. In its most basic format, an RSS file represents a single channel of information, with a title and description for this channel. There are a number of items that are in this channel, and each one of these also has a title and optional description. Both the channel as a whole and each item also has links to more complete information.

Unlike web pages, however, there is little control over the presentation of these items. While there is limited support for graphics and other media types, there is no control over their layout. Although descriptions may be HTML, their format is not guaranteed. Despite these limitations, RSS is ideal for distributing lists of information.

If there is information that you wish to regularly distribute to your customers (or potential customers), RSS may be a good tool to include in your Internet presence. OCI can help you determine how to best integrate your existing system with this new and exciting technology.