Chad Dickerson at InfoWorld is asking some inconvenient questions about RSS, most notably: How scalable is the overall syndication framework when RSS clients and aggregators are polling on a frequent, repetitive basis? (Via Phil Windley.) Network loads are probably minimal compared to serving the typical webpage, but machine cycles get used with every hit -- something to consider if your CMS also delivers your content and/or generates a feed on the fly. We haven't noticed any significant performance degradation on account of our RSS feed, but according to Dickerson, some major publishers are questioning their infrastructure costs here...
Read "RSS Growing Pains"