During one of the most popular sessions yet organised by the AOP (Association of Online Publishers) in London, publishers exchanged ideas on how news sites could adapt their content for audiences that want RSS feeds.
Most major news sites now offer such a service. Using a desktop program, users sign up for feeds from their favourite sites and blogs. This allows headlines from a variety of sites to be viewed together in a simple format.
Some new web browsers, such as Firefox 1.0 and Safari 2.0, also enable users to sign up and read for RSS feeds through the bookmarks menu.
Unlike email newsletters, RSS headlines are updated as soon as they are published and the tool also bypasses the problem of spam email.
"I can't see any reason why publishers don't have RSS feeds," said Drew Cullen, editor of tech news site the Register.
"There will be a point where traffic will diminish for sites with no RSS feed."
Mr Cullen uses up to 20 tech news sites every day. RSS means he doesn't have to navigate different websites or drill down to the relevant content.
"I think this is an indictment of how news sites do their navigation," said Mr Cullen.
"RSS feeds allow me to see at a glance what those headlines are. I can look at many more stories from many more news sites."
The Register has a very tech-savvy readership and has been involved with news feeds for a long time, said Mr Cullen. The site was redesigned in April and now offers users a choice of feeds in 50 specialist content areas from e-government to wireless networks. Feeds include the 15 most recent headlines and readers can build their own personalised news service by choosing those areas that most interest them.
Response to the improved RSS services has been dramatic, said Mr Cullen: "At the beginning of the year we had 200,000 page impressions per month from RSS users.
"By October that was 1.4 million and by November 1.6 million, so we've caught a bit of a wave here."
The site's email newsletters now compete with the feeds, but subscriptions have been dwarfed by the demand for RSS, he said.
"Email has been degraded as a publishing medium because spam has killed it off," he said.
RSS is popular because it is simple and uncluttered. But it also means that users can view the content of a site without logging on to the the site itself or viewing any adverts, which publishers rely on for revenue.
The AOP panel agreed that publishers will inevitably look to monetise RSS feeds as they become increasingly popular. Members felt users would tolerate discreet adverts within feeds, especially where ads were relevant to them.
"There's nothing wrong with targeted advertising, said Angus Bankes, co-founder of news aggregation firm Moreover.
"On some channels, for example, the adverts are more interesting than the articles. I don't accept that users don't like ads."
Mr Bankes was adamant that the industry trend is moving away from registration on news sites.
He said registration interrupts the way RSS works by putting a barrier between the user and the content they want to access quickly.
Highlighting the changing relationship between users and the internet Mr Bankes cited portals such as My Yahoo, which offer an online 'base' for users with search, email and shopping tools - and now personalised news.
These portals are very significant, said Mr Bankes, because they already incorporate RSS news feeds. My Yahoo doesn't label its customisable news page as RSS, he said and many users will be signing up for these services without knowing what RSS is.
Until Microsoft launches an RSS application, RSS will have its widest audience through these kind of portals, he added.
To make the most of RSS, Mr Bankes advised publishers to use short, simple URLs for sign up pages, create descriptive, well-written headers and regularly 'ping' the key news servers to make sure that new feeds are flagged up.
"Get your feeds out, ping servers and get your headers right. Soon we'll be overwhelmed with feeds from blogs, so there is a window of opportunity for getting out there at the moment," said Mr Bankes.
"You will find yourself on desktops all around the world."
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