Ever wondered why finding all the information you want can take so long? Surely it would be easier if all that searching and cherry-picking was automated, with a robot gathering all the news that’s important to you?

It’s not so far-fetched. Web enthusiasts with a long memory may recall a fleeting internet star called Pointcast. Before it fell victim to the dotcom doom, Pointcast took stories from net publishers and combined them into a digital newspaper, delivered to your computer and tailored to your tastes. Sadly, it did this in an ugly, bloated fashion unsuited to the slow, metered dial-up internet of its time.

Yet, like all great ideas, the notion of personalised information lingers. The hot topic of today is Really Simple Syndication (RSS), the answer for anyone with news deprivation.

RSS is a net standard that enables anyone, from a personal blogger to big news corporations, to broadcast articles and headlines to the world. You then pick up these “feeds” on your PC and choose the ones you like from the thousands of channels available.

All you need to receive RSS is reader software. SharpReader (www.sharpreader.net) is a popular, free Windows offering. Most readers come ready-populated with common newsfeeds. Once you become familiar with how the system works, you can tweak the presets to add what you want. To find more, browse the directory of some 9,000 newsfeeds at www.newsisfree.com.

Is it worth it? For me, RSS — at its most basic level — still looks pretty rough. I read news by going from site to site. Web pages are designed to be accessible, with stories displayed attractively (if you are lucky). RSS simply delivers every headline into a pane that closely resembles an e-mail inbox. If you are not careful, it looks as if half the world and its dog has just sent you a message. And remember that computers are stupid: along with all the information you want, there will be reams of junk.

You can overcome some of these obstacles with practice, but the basic concept of RSS stays the same. It dumps a lot of stuff on your machine in the hope that you will find something of interest.

RSS is no dream for publishers, either. They are giving content away, and such software makes it harder for them to sell advertising to cover costs. What we need is smarter software, programs that make RSS as intuitive and responsive as browsing individual sites. Nobody is close yet, but if you want to see the way the wind is blowing, try FeedDemon (£17; www.bradsoft.com).

This is a highly capable RSS reader with splendid bells and whistles. Top of the goodies list is the “newspaper” facility. This takes your favourite feeds in a particular category — news or sport, for example — and lays them out in a simple, configurable scheme of headlines with a brief text summary underneath.

This is first-generation software and a lot will be done to make that newspaper function more usable. Whether RSS remains an expensive fad for net publishers without any obvious income stream remains to be seen, but FeedDemon at least proves that, with the right software, RSS can reduce information overload.

david.hewson@sunday-times.co.uk

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