Okay, it’s already Wednesday, but this is a Plugin Monday post anyway. Enjoy!
You may have heard of PubSubHubbub, a brand new Internet thing with a typically silly name. But what is it? Essentially PubSubHubbub turns RSS/Atom feeds from a polling technology, into a push technology, hence the acronym PuSH.
RSS/Atom feeds—the things that allow people to subscribe to your blog or website updates—rely on a mechanism called polling. Basically polling means that your feed reader, like Google Reader, has to periodically “poll” your subscriptions by visiting feed sources and checking for updated content. Depending on how often your RSS reader polls your feeds, you could be receiving news updates 30 minutes or more after they’re posted. In many cases this may not amount to much, but if your job hinges on your ability to react to breaking news, PubSubHubbub start looking pretty awesome.
PubSubHubbub solves the delay problem by pushing your updates out to subscribers who have feed readers that accept the PuSH protocol. The “Hubbub” part of the name references a hub—the computer that does this data pushing. PuSHPress for WordPress turns your WordPress installation into such a hub, one that requires no configuration or setup apart from installing the plugin.
PuSHPress was developed by Automattic’s Joseph Scott—Automattic is the umbrella company founded by WordPress creator Matt Mullenweg—so you have no reason to worry about compatibility issues or future updates.
So, download the plugin and install it today. The server load should be minimal, so the downsides of implementation are negligible.
For those of you interested in the more nerdy side of PubSubHubbub, get the skinny on this spec from Dave Winer, the father of RSS. Others may be curious to learn how some folks think PuSH may threaten Twitter.
Cord is the director of new media at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. He has been a web developer for over a decade, working with non-profits to rein in their web development costs and grow their online audiences through simple best practices.
