So, you have a web site that has images of your sclupture.  Every once in a while you tell people about it and maybe you've taken the time to go around the web and request links to your site from other web sites.  That's good.. you probably see a few visitors to your web site each day, and that might be all you need depending on the type of site you have and what you are trying to do with it.

 But what if you have a need to get your voice out there in the world?  If you sent an article to sculpture magazine would they print it?  What if you just spent months putting together a new body of work and are going to have a show in a gallery.  Are you going to go into the address book in your e-mail program and send an e-mail to everyone you know (and expose all of their e-mail addresses to everyone who sees that e-mail)?

 Maybe you've already set up an e-mail list through something like Yahoogroups, or maybe your web hosting company included a mailing list with your web site?   So you use that to send out an e-mail each time you update your site?  Oh, or maybe you send an e-mail out to the Tri State Sculptors e-mail list?

 Well.  There's another way to let people know that your site has been updated.  Basically it works like this.  Your web site provides a small text file in a specific structure/format and that file lists a short summary of the most recent updates to your site.    Other web sites, or programs that your site visitors use can look at that file and see quickly what you've updated.  So tens or hundreds of other web sites can periodically look at that file and if you've changed something then they can list it so people will know about your "news".

Simple, eh?  Well, it actually can be.  That file can be generated automatically by your web site so you don't have to do anything to create it at all.   If you already have a web site it's still fairly easy to add this feature.

Here are a couple of  ways to do this:

1. Go to a site like Blogger or  Blogtastic and set up an account for free.  Start putting content into it and link to that from your existing web site.
   
2. Set up software on your site like Bblog or Wordpress  - this is much more difficult, but you'll have some more freedom as far as how it looks and works.  Unless you have a web geek at your disposal then this probably isn't the route for you.
   

 Once you've done either of those and have started adding articles (posts) then you can wait for people and sites to discover your syndication feed  or you can be proactive and tell a few sites and people about it. 

--- Here's an example of a site (set up by Joel Haas) http://www.joelhaasstories.blogspot.com/
--- Here's his syndication feed (in atom format) http://joelhaasnewsculpture.blogspot.com/atom.xml notice that it lacks the layout of the page that most visitors to his site will see.  That's because other web sites only need the content.  Also, it's possible to set up a feed so that it only provides a short summary rather than the full text of your post.  Blogger has info here on how to do that for sites hosted with them.

Should your entire site be a blog or be syndicated?  Probably not, but it can be part of your site that you update fairly often. 

What you choose to syndicate is up to you.  It might be reviews of shows, maybe a record of public art that you see during your travels, maybe political points that will affect other artists.  This article is being syndicated. 

Why should you do this?  Well..  if you're taking the time to put stuff on the web and it's important enough for others to read it then you might as well make it easy for them to find it.