Do you recognize the logo to the left? It’s the symbol for an RSS Feed, of course… But what does that mean and why are RSS feeds so important? RSS stands for Rich Site Summary. In short, RSS is a protocol for delivering ever-changing web content and is used by many news-related sites (such as BBC, CNN and more), blogs (like Mark8t) and other online publishers. But why does that matter to you ask? RSS solves a problem for people who regularly use the web and have many sources to keep track of. That includes your main customer, as an electronic component supplier, the design Engineer. But there are benefits for regular user as well. It allows you or your customer to easily stay informed of various sites by retrieving the latest content from industry news, to sports scores and more. This cuts down on a need to visit ten or fifteen sites to stay informed about your interests. Furthermore, it avoids your customers from having to sign up for an email newsletter, with the potential for abuse and unintentional spam and also ensures their privacy–which is valued commodity for many. Who wants more username and passwords to recall or the six or seven emails from different sources each day? As RSS feeds have really spread quickly the last couple of years. More and more sites are offering them, including some of the biggest names in the component industry (see list below)

Also, as a quick note, you may run across something called ATOM. ATOM is an alternative syndication format. RSS is by far more widely used. In general, though, sites that publish ATOM will often publish RSS as well, so it is not an issue.

Now you may be asking how do you read all these feeds? Is there an expensive software or fee you need to pay? Actually there isn’t. All you need to read RSS content is a software called an “RSS reader”, “feed reader” or an “aggregator”, which can be web-based or desktop-based. These can be easily found online, and are for the most part free. It’s basically becomes a readers digest of your interests with you as the editor. Personally we use Google’s (free) Feed Reader which you check out here.

Another use of RSS feeds, is to distribute Podcasts. You may have heard the term “Podcast” before, but it’s really not as mysterious as your think. Simply stated, a Podcast is a way to send a series of digital-media files over the Internet using syndication feeds (such as RSS) for playback on portable media players and computers–such as to iPods. It basically tells/notifies your MP3 player/computer there are new files to be downloaded. This is a great way for your company to share video demonstrations of your products or speeches.

So if RSS feeds are so great, you must think everyone is using them…. But alas, there are still many companies who have not discovered the power of RSS feeds. There are also some who have begun using RSS feeds, but not to their full potential. The RSS feed in our view is a great-untapped opportunity to get to your customers directly, inform them of new products and train them. We were also curious of market adoption in the electronics industry. We did a quick survey* of those electronic component companies using RSS feeds. You can check out the results below. Is your company there? If not, what are you waiting for???…

* Survey was a visit done on June 30 and July1st of company sites, with a careful look for RSS feeds notices, as well as a Google search, using the domain site search function and searching for file type for RSS, ATOM and XML files.RSS Feed Survey of Analog Devices, Avago Technologies, AVX Corporation,Hynix, Infineon, Kemet,KOA,NEC-Tokin, Nichicon,Panasonic,Qimonda AG,Renesas,Rohm Electronics, Samsung Electronics,Sharp Microelectronics,Taiyo Yuden, TDK Corporation,TOKO Inc., Yageo Corporation, Altera, EPCOS, Fairchild, Freescale, IDT, International Rectifier, Murata, National Semiconductor, Nippon Chemi-Con Corp, NXP, ON Semiconductor, ST Micro, Texas Instruments,Toshiba Semiconductor, Vishay Intertechnology.