Many people have said that RSS technology is the future of the internet, and for good reason. The market for RSS and the products that utilize it has come a long way in a relatively short amount of time. As Ron Hrastnik of The RSS Diary puts it, “most markets start their development in fragments and then consolidate more in their mature phase.”  Using consolidation as a measure of market maturity, Hrastnik cites international mergers in the RSS market that occurred as early as 2005 as proof of the market’s impressively rapid maturation since its initial development began in 2002 and 2003. As a result, the use of RSS technology has become much more pervasive, and RSS feeds are now available on most major websites. This increased popularity has opened up the market for user-friendly RSS readers and aggregators.

 Looking at today’s market, it appears that RSS readers can be separated into two categories: that of the generic online aggregators (such as GoogleReader, MyYahoo!, Bloglines, etc.) and that of the desktop alert systems. Despite the popularity of the first, it is the latter category that appears to be the most promising for the future. The market for desktop RSS readers has tremendous potential for growth, especially in the fields of business and marketing. Online aggregators are useful for individual users who want all of the latest news from their favorite sites to be compiled into one entity. However, at a company level, a desktop alert system is much more desirable because it allows for customization of the alerts, as well as more direct contact with customers and employees. Having important RSS feed updates delivered right to the desktop is in many ways preferable to visiting an aggregator site, and for this reason, many of the online aggregators are starting to develop desktop widgets in an attempt to compete with the convenience of desktop alert systems. This fact, among others, suggests that the main focus of the market for RSS technology will soon shift away from the previously dominant method of online aggregation and toward the promising system of personalized desktop alerts.

   Hrastnik, Ron. "The RSS Market Consolidating." The RSS Diary. 5 Aug. 2005. marketingstudies.net. 30 May 2007 http://rssdiary.marketingstudies.net/content/the_rss_market_consolidating.php.