11-06-05
Syndication of Information (RSS) is Spreading in the Antiques & Collectibles Sector

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is an industry standard for publishing daily headlines, (RSS reader required).

-Yahoo reports a 10 fold increase of Antiquing RSS feeds listed in it's MyYahoo index since May of this year.
-Maine Antiques Digest recognizes the growing importance of Blogs in Antiquing. Click here for story. Google anounces a Blog Search Beta.
-about 7.3 milliom visitors to nytimes.com via RSS in May 2005. NYT 7/5/05
An illustration of the large number of RSS Readers now in place.

RSS Progress in the Antiques & Collectibles sector:
as of November 5, 2005

-Yahoo offers a free reader and index in it's My Yahoo section. (Registry required.)
---441 Antique syndicated feeds - 41 as of 4/15/05 - 60 as of 7/6/05
---341 Collectibles feeds - 134 as of 4/15/05 - 166 as of 7/6/05
----provides RSS feeds of Yahoo searches

-MicroSoft - started in January -offers a free reader and index in it's My MSN section. (Registry required.)
--Now has a Beta for new content search, does not give number - I did not count.
----over 100 Antique feeds - up from 53 as of 4/15/05 - 71 as of 7/6/05
----over 100 Collectibles feeds -up from 65 last May
----Now provides RSS feeds from it's News searches
----There is a rumor that MS will provide an RSS reader in it's next Window edition.

-Syndic8
----109 Antique feeds - up from 37 as of 4/15/05 - 57 as of 7/5/05
----105 Collectibles - up from 44 as of 4/15/05
----They also provide a Reader. Click here for sample.

--Feedburner manages 135,178 feeds of all types, including RSS, Blogs and Podcasts.
----They also provide a Reader. Click here for sample.

-Feedster - a search engine for RSS feeds and Blogs.
----A search for "antiques" yeilded 46,697 citations-mostly from Blogs.
----A search for "collectibles" yeilded 22,845 citations -mostly from Blogs.
----Blogs about antiques and collectibles are proliferating

-Google offers RSS feeds from it's Google News Searches.
----Promotes Adsense for RSS feeds.

----Google has introduced a Blog Search Beta
------Search for Antiques yeilded 278,244 references. Many were from individual Blog entries.

- Amazon offers several dozen RSS feeds - but not yet a feed on antiquing books

RSS syndication and blogging are becomming important means of distributing information in the Antiques and Collectibles sector. Companies that send news out in this manner are The New York Times, Wall Srteet Journal, Boston Globe, BBC News, ABC News, Yahoo, TIAS New Letter, Amazon and thousands of others. Blogs, the fastest growing part of the internet, also use RSS syndication extensively.

Yahoo, MSN, Syndic8 and others have lists of thousands of syndicated feeds for you to select your list.
This system is commonly called RSS for "Really Simple Syndication".
We predict that an increasing number of Antique Shops will be placing their new listings on RSS programs.

On July 5, 2005, The New York Times published an article by Louise Story titled "Marketers See Opportunity As a Web Tool Gains Users". Subheadline was "R.S.S., or Really Simple Syndication, alters the way data is retrieved."
A NYT executive commented that in April 2005,there were about 7.3 milliom visitors to nytimes.com via RSS - up from about 500,000 per month in 2003.An illustration of the large number of RSS Reader now in place.

Definitions:
Feed:
The publisher places headlines (that click through to story) on a standard program for publishing updates to web based content. This is called an RSS feed. If you look at an RSS feed with your browser, it looks like giberish.
Another specialized program, a Reader, is required to see it on your browser.

Reader or "aggregator":
A program that converts the RSS code into a form easily readable on your computer.
Readers support more than one feed, thus the name "aggregator".
Free readers can be downloaded from the internet, or there are a number of on-line free readers such as the ones supplied by YaHoo and MSN.

As an Antiquer, I find the free readers a bit complicated.
Really Simple RSS is developing a free reader for selected Antique and Collectibles feeds. Click here, for a working copy. The index contains about 25 feeds.
Click here for a draft of an organized index.

What's all the fuss?
Benefits to you:
One webpage to scan the headlines of news (NYT, WSJ, BBC, Boston Globe, etc) and your choice of Antique and collectible feeds.
We predict that shops will be putting their new listing etc. on RSS feeds in the near future.

Benefits to publisher:
RSS permits instant distribution of content updates to interested info consumers. Eliminates the problem of aggressive Spam filters between Publisher and Consumer.

Some references you might find interesting:
Learn about RSS on Yahoo
Feedburner's introduction to RSS
About Antiques introduction to RSS.
Mediathink's whitepaper.

S. H. Rider
New England Antiquing
e-mail address-Antiquing RSS