RSS Feed

This New Technology allowed journalists as well as individuals to keep updated on news, without lots of searching. Instead of having to go to websites to see if there's a new story or feature, you can use RSS (which stands for Really Simple Syndication) to tell you every time the news you want is updated. PRWeek

According to the Wikipedia.com, the technology of RSS allows Internet users to subscribe to websites that have provided RSS feeds; these are typically sites that change or add content regularly. To use this technology, site owners create or obtain specialized software (such as a content management system) which, in the machine-readable XML format, presents new articles in a list, giving a line or two of each article and a link to the full article or post. Unlike subscriptions to many printed newspapers and magazines, most RSS subscriptions are free.
RSS allows, sending automatically your blog posts or new content at your website to those who ask for it. Who that might be? They can be journalists, customers, stakeholders, and everyone else. It is a valuable tool for searching. In-house public relations departments or public relations agencies, can use RSS feed to make the Media Relations process easier and quicker. News or even press releases can be sent to journalists. This New Technology solves the problem of going into thousands of websites and searching for information and news. In this way the information is send to the person that is interested directly and automatically.

Eric Schwartzman, former director of promotions at Rogers & Cowan and founder of Schwartzman & Associates in Los Angeles, at his Blog “Spinfluencer” writes that “RSS makes it possible for public relations agencies and corporate pr professionals to leverage the Net as their own custom electronic media distribution network. It is, for PR, the first practical solution for establishing and maintaining your own 24/7 network for the distribution of text, audio and video.

In addition, RSS Feed is an economical way to distribute information internally and externally. A case study on the Company Triple Point Technology proves that RSS is a cheap way of communicating, according to Anne Chen on e-week.com. In public Relations, practitioners do not buy space or time in the media, and budgets are usually tight. RSS gives an easy and cheap way of communicating.

Ron Miller on Network World highlights that “big firms all have some budget for public relations — not only to generate media hits, but also to track references made about the business or its products. Many small firms can’t afford to hire a professional and are too busy to track company buzz themselves. So many are turning to news aggregators”

News Aggregator is a a type of software that retrieves syndicated Web content that is supplied in the form of a web feed (RSS, Atom and other XML formats), and that are published by weblogs, podcasts, vlogs, and mainstream mass media websites.Wikipedia

RSS feed, as mentioned previously, can be a useful tool for Public Relations and especially on Media Relations, on the other Hand, it can also be tricky and sometimes not effective in that area of PR practice. In communication terms, RSS might be impersonal and indirect. An article by Case Stevens in the "All I Need" website believes that, “It’s not a one -to-one communication medium. You cannot build a relationship with your readers, you can’t personalize it and you cannot reward your subscribers for trusting you, simply because you don’t know who they are.”
Apart from it’s disadvantages, RSS feed is a new technology used in Public Relations creating a new trend in communicating with the Media, and making the Media Relations process easier and more effective. The technology, whether it is or isn’t acceptable to all practitioners, influences the industry and causing necessary changes.