Go read Read/Write Web RSS has now hit the bigtime. Google is looking for feeds. MS has decided to become compliant. "There are 3 themes in particular from Dick's post which grabbed my attention: 1) RSS feeds encompass much more than blogs now 2) Feed becomes input to content on the site 3) Focus on the feed item - attach threads to the item and track it across the Web while it gets remixed and re-published." The post Richard MacManus is referring to is from Feedburner CEO Dick Costolo. You need to read it too. You can find it here. The reality seems to be that the 2006 web is going to be increasingly driven by RSS feeds. Sending your content out and making money doing it is going to be hard. But getting decent Google rankings without an RSS feed is going to be harder. Most of us already publish for free. The question may well be whether we are happy being "re-published" for free. Ads in RSS are one alternative. Are there others. Put another way, the distinction between blogs and websites may well be that blogs have RSS which the SE's are starting to love and websites don't. What will that do for your business?
Ive always known RSS feeds were important to the future of the web, i dont think sites will be penalised for not having them but if you have one(or many) you'll be compensated hansomly. Webmasters need to get with the program, if you don't keep abreast of technology then bye bye!