October 28, 2002, 2:09 PM ET
csmonitor.com offers syndication feeds
This just in: The Christian Science Monitor now offers syndication feeds in RSS format.
Twelve feeds are available, from topical feeds such as "Top Stories" and "Sci / Tech" to the broader "Entire Paper by Section."
The latter is particularly notable because, to my knowledge, it's the first time a major news site has made its entire contents available in a single public RSS feed. In early September, BBC News made select topical feeds available, but the site stopped short of syndicating everything.
The Monitor's Joel Abrams, Partnership Development Specialist, had this to tell me:
I'm really excited by this -- this is such a great, almost-zero-cost [way] to reach new people.
A few thoughts: I forget where I first saw the comparison of news aggregators to Napster, but it definitely applies: content is going to get out there and be aggregated, outside of its original context. A few people in our organization were a bit scared by that. But unlike Napster, the publisher still benefits from users coming to the web site and reading the whole story. And publishing in RSS seems a great way to get that elusive mindshare of users.
And this is just a start. Joel also told me there will be "a lot more coming in the next month or two." According to the site's syndication page, readers should expect "RSS feeds for news briefs, MonitorBlog, Daily Update, and more."
Outstanding.
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