Academic Search with RSS Support

Microsoft's Windows Live Academic Search is designed to help students, researchers and university faculty conduct research across a spectrum of academic journals. The service will offer peer-reviewed content from leading scholarly societies. Support for macros allow customers to more finely tune their search results, and RSS so that consumers can be alerted when new information on a topic or author that they care about becomes available.

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is a technology that has been used for a long time on websites for various purposes. It has helped to keep the users of the website informed of updates and new content in a very efficient manner. Here's how RSS has been used on websites over the years:

1. Content Syndication: The primary use of RSS feeds has been content syndication. Publishers could create an RSS feed for their website, and users could subscribe to that feed using an RSS reader. This means that whenever a new article or post was published, subscribers would automatically receive the update, without needing to manually check the website.
2. Blog Subscription: Blogs have been one of the main places where RSS feeds have been used. Instead of readers having to remember to check a blog daily for new posts, they could simply subscribe to the RSS feed and get updates in their feed reader.
3. News Aggregation: Many news websites and aggregators use RSS feeds to gather articles and news stories from various sources. This allows them to display the latest content from different sites in one place, offering users a more comprehensive view of the news.
4. Podcasting: RSS is fundamental for podcast distribution. Podcasters create an RSS feed for their show, and then submit that feed to podcast directories like Apple Podcasts. When they publish a new episode, it's automatically sent out to these directories via the RSS feed.
5. Social Media Updates: Some social media platforms have used RSS feeds to allow users to keep track of updates. For instance, users could subscribe to an RSS feed for a Twitter hashtag or a Facebook page.
6. eCommerce and Product Updates: Online retailers and eCommerce sites have used RSS to inform subscribers about product updates, new arrivals, and special deals or discounts.
7. Job Boards: Websites for job postings often provide RSS feeds for specific job search criteria. This way, job seekers can get real-time updates about new jobs that match their search parameters.
8. Forum and Discussion Boards: Many online discussion forums offer RSS feeds for specific threads or topics. This allows users to follow along with the discussion without needing to constantly check the site for new posts.
9. Search Engine Optimization (SEO): RSS feeds have also been used as a method to improve a website's SEO. The regular updating of content through RSS feeds can help improve search rankings.
10. Website Backup: Some webmasters used RSS feeds as a simple form of website backup. They could archive the contents of their RSS feed, providing a record of all the content that had been published on the site.

While RSS isn't as prominently used today due to the growth of social media and changes in the way people consume content online, it still serves a valuable purpose in content distribution and syndication.