Discuss RSS for Nonprofits

Hmmmm? I thought that I posted a reply to Susan yesterday; but nothing is there?! Will try again.

An angle to a meaningful article might be based on a response to those who don't see the utility of using RSS today. Personally, I don't see many good reasons not to use RSS -- at least as I see RSS (which might be different from some other views).

So, what I would propose is that readers use this space for the next few days to brainstorm/list the reasons they have not used RSS in their organizations. I will take the responses and organize an article that explores the objections and offers some counters (if appropriate) and submit that for your consideration.

Just to reiterate and to focus our inputs: the question is are you using RSS as part of your communications strategy as a non-profit organization? If not, why not?

We actually have a live rss on our site. It is actually a PHP script that is connecting to the database on the livesite. We have made sure that MySQL injection cannot occur & have also restricted privileges for the mysql user that the php script uses. We created a mysql account that can only select from specific tables from our database. This secures our feed fairly well. You can see the feed here...

http://www.vote-smart.org/rss.htm

I'm a huge advocate of RSS & with the php script that we use, we are able to include a donate button on all the items including the main channel image. Also, with the script we are able to add global items to the script that will be added to each feed file that uses our include file. Thus, once someone subscribes to the feed, every month we can add an item that tells them about our other services & if they would like to donate. RSS is wide open to ideas like this. I hope this helps and if you have any technical questions or concerns feel free to email me!!!

This is an interesting thread.

We're using RSS as a way of controlling different views of our information. Our main page www.handsnet.org is a collection of RSS feeds.

We create these feeds through postings to Movable Type and display and format using CaRP. (the MT view of the same information is at http://webclipper.handsnet.org/mt-static/)

We don't use many of the blogging capabilities of MT, except for the Quickpost function which is good for capturing information from Websites that we post on HandsNet. Movable Type is a fairly easy to maintain content management system and with a little PHP you can get information in and out of it efficiently.

We have been using an rss feed for a long time..
http://virtualtrials.com/feed.xml

We have hundreds of people subscribed. Our feed basically describes changes to our website, which is about brain tumor treatments. So whenever we add an article or clinical trial, it is automatically added to our feed. It not only keeps our members informed, but it leads them back to our website much more often than they would return without the feed. (We also send out email newsletters, but not as often as the feed is updated, so the people who really need the information fast use the feed!)

Someone asked how to construct it.. we also use dreamweaver - and cold fusion. All scripts that enable us to add content to the website automatically add an entry into a database that the feed uses to update itself.
Creating the feed itself is simple for your web programmer. It is a very easy syntax.

I just did a training video on using rss. As usual for me right now this is in the context of MOODLE but does cover subscribing to feeds from blogs as well. It is meant for end users and I would welcome any comments or input as to it's usefulness or ways to improve it.

The video is here http://treadwell.cce.cornell.edu/moodle_doc/

I feel rss has great potential, but like any new tech in myorganization teaching people how to use it and making it a normal part of their workflow is always a challenge.

Paul