Secrets of RSS

People often start their RSS feed with big ideas and high hopes, but the one thing many of them don't understand is that to build an RSS feed with a loyal following, they have to devote attention to it regularly.

Is your idea for a feed energizing and sustaining enough to make your feed last a long time? As you get into RSS, you'll see hundreds of feeds that started well, even with multiple updates each day, but then petered out.

If you want your feed to be successful, you have to choose a lasting idea and keep at it. If you want to write a Web page, that's one thingbut a blog or RSS feed needs to keep going. A Web page is a one-shot deal: You write it, you post it. Not so with an RSS feed.

RSS readers are merciless on this pointthey just keep checking your feed, usually every hour, waiting for something new. Successful feeds endure. In fact, the structure of RSS readers brings the feeds that are frequently updated to the reader's notice more often than those that are not. This in itself is one of the things that makes those feeds more successful. Thus you can think of your feed as competing with other feeds for readers' attention, and those that get more frequently updated catch their attention more often.