Why RSS Atom Feeds Are the Greatest Thing Since Sliced Bread

In this reviewer's humble opinion, one of the greatest things invented for computers and the Internet are RSS and Atom feeds. Frankly, they might be the best things to happen to humanity since sliced bread.

For those unfamiliar with the terms, RSS and Atom are ways of pushing content to users without all the extraneous "stuff" we're used to seeing on websites. For instance, when I go to a news site, I rarely look at the pictures, or glance at all the articles in every category available to me. I pretty much look at the technology, sports and political articles.

Wouldn't it be great if there was some way I could filter out all the stuff I don't want and get just the stuff I'm interested in?

There is. RSS and Atom.

RSS and Atom feeds are similar to html, in a basic sense. They include a header and body, and with the right software, can be presented in a nice, presentable fashion.

There are several advantages to RSS/Atom feeds, both for the content viewer and the content provider. First, most RSS/Atom feeds are basic text. Sure, you'll find some that include graphics and/or links to multimedia clips, but 9 times out of 10 (I'd guess), feeds are text-based. Compare this to visiting a website for news. What do you see? Tons of ads. All kinds of multimedia you are forced to load, even if you have no intention of viewing it. Not to mention all the time and space wasted showing you articles that are of no interest to you.

With RSS and Atom feeds, you aren't faced with information you don't want. Feeds can be customized to suit your interests, filtering out what you don't want to see. For example, if you browse to the New York Times' website and scroll fairly near the bottom, you'll see a link for adding N.Y. Times News Feeds. Clicking that link takes you to this page, which shows a complete listing of all the feeds the New York Times makes available. There are a ton of them.