Empower yourself with RSS

Posted on May 2, 2007
Filed Under Real Estate News | Leave a Comment

Knowledge – A Valuable Commodity

How to stay on the cutting edge of information the easy way.

With the vast amount of information we are required to take in on a daily basis its easy to suffer from information overload and its ugly side effects. One such side effect from information overload is called “The Fog of War” by the military as moments semi-controlled chaos and confusion set in and mistakes can be tragically made. Business is no different and we pride ourselves on having the kinds of information we need as current and accurate as can be.

Since no one truly wants to make decisions based on less than all the facts the goal would seem to be to have the most up to date news and information one can garner in a manageable and familiar format. Therein lies the true power of RSS and news feeds.

Really Simple Syndication (RSS) and Atom feeds provide you an easy way to keep track of multiple sources of news, forums, blogs, and other valuable syndicated content that is likely to change with frequency. Tapping into such news requires the most basic of tools, an RSS reader or tool that retrieves the news feed and presents it back to you. Although the tools are as broad as the feeds themselves, I believe people are creatures of habit and would rather work with what is familiar to them. So lets look briefly at two applications commonly used in business today.

Using RSS in Microsoft Outlook and Outlook Express

Microsoft Outlook is likely the worlds most widely used and premier email client application available. Outlook, with its many features and broad compatibility characteristics makes it an ideal application to manage short task lists, project notes, multiple email account and many other business critical features. Although Microsoft Outlook and Outlook Express do not have the ability to access or display RSS or Atom content there are third party add-ons that can extend both applications to feature RSS abilities. Now this is true up until version 2007 of Office products.

RSS PopperOne such tool is the RSS Popper which is a 100% freeware application that actas as a news aggregator add-in for Outlook & Outlook Express. Forum, Blogs and other frequented news items can be delivered directly to Outlook as e-mails. No need to use a separate program for reading RSS anymore. All RSS/RDF/Atom formats are supported. You can download RSS Popper Here. Click to view a larger image.

As companies see RSS in action, they recognize the power of its simplicity, and quickly realize how it can help organizations understand their markets better, watch trends, and stay on top of the mountains of information that are available. What’s more, it can help improve communication outside the company with customers, suppliers, journalists, and others interested in what you are doing. As a bonus, it provides a communication outlet that takes some of the pressure off of email, which has become so crowded it’s difficult to get your message heard through all the noise.

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