RSS -- Part One

RSS

Some say it stands for:

Really Simple Syndication

Others claim it means:

RDF Site Summary

or

Rich Site Summary

Regardless, it's a data format based on XML that lets content providers syndicate.

Readers can subscribe to blogs that include an RSS tag which most blog software includes automatically.

RSS in a push technology for use in a publish/subscribe paradigm.

RSS readers run in popular web browsers. They display RSS feeds a reader has subscribed to. Portal sites such as Yahoo! also support RSS so that people can read their favorite blogs without having to leave their favorite news aggregator.

There are a couple of different syndication standards, but they are largely interchangable and readable with the same browser-based applications.

To publish RSS feeds, distributors create RSS files. Each item in a feed is described in XML by a few attributes such as title, date, author and content summary. Consumers of the content peruse descriptions to see which entries they want to read. They use any number of RSS readers -- which resemble web-based email clients -- then access the complete version of the content on its original web page.

With RSS, producers get a wider audience and consumers can track content with almost no effort at all once they register their feeds.

I'll write-up the next part of this blog as soon as I figure out how to actually do this stuff on my own.