Dozens of businesses were unable to recover from 9/11. Having all of their files and backup data in one location added incredible economic damage to already tragic losses of life. Should businesses anticipate a graver disaster than that of World Trade Center?

Jumping forward ten, maybe twenty, years... North Korea’s nuclear arsenal builds to an astounding 50,000 warheads (more than USSR at peak of Cold War), ozone hole exceeds 15 million square miles, and war on terror wages on. Nevertheless, it’s business–as–usual back in good old US of A. Investments grow, as does price of gasoline and real estate. Cures for would–be–lethal diseases are on brink of discovery, and space travel is available to anyone willing to pay.

Nobody saw it coming. Or more precisely, no one believed it would really happen. Astronomers warned of day asteroid would come. And it does.

Barreling through space at unheard–of speeds, asteroid, aptly named “the end of days,” smashes against earth like a 400 billion ton hammer. Hundreds of thousands of lives are lost almost immediately. Dust and ash spread across sky, and earth whimpers as if wind were knocked out of her. Over coming months, damage is address by Red Cross like a troupe of girl scouts servicing Normandy invasion. The economy is in shambles as consumer confidence falls through floor...and then basement.

How Does it Work? Publishers and webmasters provide content and news in an RSS feed. Users view content of interest in an RSS reader or news aggregator. The aggregator or reader contains collection of feeds that are of interest to user. As RSS feed is updated content in reader or aggregator updates with new information. At any point, users can remove a feed from their aggregator or reader and no longer receive information from that source. Ultimately, user is choosing news and content they wish to view.

As RSS has increased in popularity more and more webmasters and publishers have adopted RSS as an alternative communication stream. Webmasters use an RSS graphic to indicate content is available via RSS.

RSS Aggregators and News Readers Generally, there are three types of RSS readers that users use to view feeds that they've subscribed to. Feeds can be viewed in a desktop application, web-based aggregator, or plug-in aggregator.

Desktop RSS Readers Standalone desktop applications generally run in background, similar to an e-mail client, automatically refreshing headlines as newfeeds are updated. The RSS readers collect feeds and refresh items in feeds each time they are updated. An example of a popular standalone desktop RSS reader is: FeedDemon - http://www.feeddemon.com