RSS – Future of the Web

RSS has been around for quite a while now. Created in 1999 for use on the Netscape portal, RSS has  now developed into one of the fastest growing influences on the web. Basically, it allows users to subscribe to news feeds from websites and in particular blogs so that you get the latest information straight to your desktop.

Forbes believe that RSS is going to be big with IAC (owners of Ask Jeeves) buying Bloglines; and Marc Andreessen and Ron Conway investing in Rojo Networks, an online aggregation service.

The reason for the investor buzz is the online community aspect that the new generation of RSS readers can provide. With Rojo you can tag articles in the same way as Flickr or del.icio.us and then send them to your contacts to read, whilst they can see what you’ve been reading. The obvious potential for this model is contextual ads but it could be that aggregators start requesting cash to promote sites or find other means of making money from this service.