(March 04, 2005) - In some places, they're calling it the RSS bubble. (Still trying to remember RSS? See Doug Miller's write-ups on RSS and Aggregators.) Between the rapid changes in hiring dynamics and the flow of capital to new companies, something familiar is happening. As is usually the case, the imminent death of the newspapers (and now, the job boards) is widely proclaimed.

A dozen things are happening at once.

1. New companies are readying themselves for traditional launches at the trade shows (starting later this month). So the buzz generators are turned on full.
2. Really, money is starting to flow into the deal space of HR-web applications.
3. A couple of big players are shifting gears and terminating support for their ATS systems.
4. Yahoo! is starting to seriously consider its leverage in the market.
5. The post-Peoplesoft era has begun.
6. Importantly, hiring has begun to become competitive.
7. RSS really is a disruptive technology.
8. Social networking appears to be a necessary tool in the Recruiters kit. (But, it's a screwdriver, not an entire kit.)
9. Publicly interactive recruiting (a la Microsoft) is proving a powerful point... intimacy, transparency and disclosure are essential elements of contemporary online recruiting.
10. Search engines and search technology have yet to be felt in their full impact.
11. The automation of referral networks has begun in earnest.
12. One more time, technologists are leading the charge into new products. (Hmm, wasn't that a mistake last time?)

• Jobster [reviewed, job ad, blog]
• WorkZoo [reviewed, job map, blog)
• Indeed [reviewed, job map, blog]