RSS

What is it ?

RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication. It is a standard XML-based system that enables to broadcast content in a simple and hierarchical way. Many websites and blogs offer the broadcasting of their news as RSS feeds. An RSS file is a simple text file that presents information in an organized way. This file is updated whenever new information is added. To read this file, a RSS reader is required. 

What's the point?

RSS technology allows you to receive on your computer in real time any news broadcasted on a blog or a site using RSS.

Imagine that you have signed up to receive news from the newspaper "X". Your RSS reader will, for example, every hour check on the website of the newspaper "X" if there are new releases and notify you in case there is. 

It exists 3 types of RSS reader:

• Software: they settle just like any other applications (eg Feedreader)

• Integrated applications: these are pieces of software as browsers and email clients (eg Thunderbird (Mac and PC))

• Web interfaces: These applications are directly accessible by Internet without any prerequired installation (eg Snyke.com)

The advantages of RSS

• Information is transmitted to the user (pull) and it is the latter who request so, the user remains anonymous and control access to information. Spam is very limited or absent.
• The broacast of information and its update are nearly instant.
• The simplicity and standardization of this technology makes it mobile on all platforms (portable software, web sites, blogs, Mac, Pc, phone, PDA, etc.)

More information ? See this video !

Facebook Privacy as seen by Mark Zuckenberg

"People are now comfortable with the idea of sharing more different information, more openly and with more Internet users. (...) The social norm has changed." Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, talked about the changing of the privacy parameters in his social network, and estimated that the 350 millions of site users do not attach as much importance to protection of their personal data as before.

According to the founder of the largest social network in the world, this evolution justifies the modification of the privacy settings of the website, put in place in mid-December, and strongly criticized by privacy advocacy groups. Mark Zuckerberg, who had himself been trapped by change settings on its own personal account, estimated that this website's changes was necessary, and reflected "what would be standards if we launched the website today". "Few companies would dare to change the privacy settings of 350 million of users."

For Mark Zuckerberg, it is mainly the younger generations who have a different notion of what constitutes privacy, and how it must be protected. "The kids were always concerned about the respect of their privacy, it is just what they mean by 'private life' that is very different from what it is for adults", he said. "As adults, we believe that our home is a private space ... For young people, this is not the case. They can not control who enters and leaves their room. For them the on-line world is more private, because they have more control over what is happening there. "

See the video here !

Web 2.0 ?

Web 2.0 is redefining the Internet not as a medium but as a platform: a platform for exchanges between users ("collective intelligence") and services or applications online.

It is the Internet that we all know, but which could have added a collaborative dimension, where a number of innovative concepts (Blogs, wikis, tags, social networks ...) are gradually enriching existing services to form a revolutionary all in one logic of continuous development.

Internet and online services have entered a maturation phase. For the four pillars of the Web (Google, Yahoo, Amazon, eBay) it is important to engage in a race for innovation. For if the quality level of the websites has increased overall in recent years, it becomes increasingly difficult to stand out and retain visitors. In this context, the concepts associated with Web 2.0 can bring response elements.

The blogging phenomenon - 70 million worldwide - shows how Internet users are hungry for making speech and recognition. 

Similarly, wikis are also experiencing strong growth. Wikipedia the collaborative online encyclopedia, is the figurehead. 

Obviously the principle of personal pages is not new, but recent technological developments and ergonomic tools available to users have adopting a much broader and a much more fluid circulation of information using the syndication mechanism and RSS. 


Social networks are the backbone of Web 2.0. All these services propose to create an online identity card that will allow you to find contacts and build a network of relationships within clicks. 
 


But the collaboration between users can take other forms.

Folksonomies are a good example with services as del.icio.us or Flickr. Behind this term lies a classification system based on collective keywords (or tags).

The principle is simple: it is the users who organize their content (photos, links, music ...) by applying to each elements one or more tags. These tags are then pooled and emerge statistically most relevant of the lot. 

The site selling T-shirts "LaFraise.com" was a pioneer of collaborative e-commerce :

Visitors publish visuals that are rated by Internet users and whether the creations reach a sufficient score, T-shirts are printed and sold. 

In this beautiful story, everyone wins: the author of the visual is paid for his work, customers choose their own T-shirts they like and the boss only prints T-shirts that he is sure are going to be sell.

The promise of Web 2.0 is opening a new era where users are both contributors and beneficiaries. We leave the era of two-way interaction (website <-> user) for one of collaboration and collective intelligence. A new start where a multitude of new uses and new applications are yet to find.