RSS : API For Content

(Via Rajesh) Nivi writes that a Web API lets you use a web site’s computers, data, algorithms, and functions to create your own web services. Google, Ebay, Amazon, Yahoo, and many other web services have APIs.RSS is like an API for content. RSS gives access to a web site’s data just like an API gives you access to a web site’s computing power. Importantly, RSS gives access to data that is locked up on a web site. Nivi makes a fine point when he writes, "Every Web 1.0 company will have to decide what content they will open with RSS". For example, Amazon already makes their content like their book catalog available through their API. But will Amazon open up user-contributed content through RSS? Jon Udell say that the winners of the Web 2.0 orgy will be the sites that don’t lock up user-contributed content. Instead, the winners will create a compelling ecosystem for you to store your content and bring in your content from other sites via RSS. We earlier covered in this blog, RSS impact on business wherein we wrote,"In Future, companies will begin to figure out how to perform tasks, such as tracking inventory, using RSS feeds. There’s no question that RSS is one of the most powerful technologies of the Internet age". In this disaggregated world, RSS becomes the means to distribute content and applications.