There are many free newsreaders out there, and most of them do the same basic task, allow you to subscribe to RSS feeds and download the title and a short description of the content being syndicated from the feed. What’s more, on many websites such as news sites allow you to subscribe to categories or sub-categories of their content, such as “regional news” or specific topics.

I use Outlook 2007 as my RSS reader and it is very easy to add new RSS feeds.

Where this RSS feed technology gets interesting for online bookshops is this: Creating RSS feeds for each category of books that are listed for sale! By doing this, bookshop regulars can be instantly updated on what books have been recently listed on the website within their favourite category. A global RSS feed showing all new book listings would drive you crazy if you wern’t interested in any of them. Also, if you were to get your email inbox flooded with latest book listings I’m sure you would unsubscribe from such a service pretty quick. With the use of an RSS reader and the ability to subscribe to specific categories you are interested in is a great way to keep an eye on the books might be interested in snapping up as they become available.

As more and more online bookstores adopt RSS feeds that syndicate their products in this way, book collectors will benefit from being able to compare book prices easily from their newsreader as well as monitor multiple bookshop’s product listing activity at the same time! Encouraging bookshop customers to engage with RSS feeds empowers the customer as well as (hopefully) increase the bookshop’s turnover via their website.

Acting on the opportunities presented by RSS web technology, I have implemented RSS feeds for each product category for the Curiosity Bookshop website.

To find out more about RSS and for recommended RSS newsreaders go to http://www.whatisrss.com/

I recommend everyone get themselves a free RSS newsreader now and subscribe to the Curiosity Bookshop product categories of their choice listed below: