RSS is a family of Web feed formats used to publish frequently updated works such as blog entries, news headlines and so on, in a standardized format. An RSS document includes a brief summary of the original text, and also metadata such as publishing dates and authorship.
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And, you all might be thinking of who benefits from the use of this type of formats. Let’s see. Web feeds benefit publishers by letting them syndicate content automatically; they, too, benefit readers who want to subscribe to websites that are regularly updated.
RSS formats are specified using XML, a markup language specialized, among other functions, in the creation of data formats. RSS formats have evolved in the last years, and that is the reason why we can find different versions:
- Rich Site Summary (RSS 0.91)
- RDF Site Summary (RSS 0.9 and 1.0)
- Really Simple Syndication (RSS 2.0)
The term RSS has caused confusion recently because it has been extensively applied to Web feeds in general, although another Web feeds formats such as Atom, for instance, are widely used nowadays.
RSS feeds are read using a specific software called a “feed reader”, or “aggregator“. These aggregators allow us to obtain in our desktop or e-mail accounts the summaries that we have previously mentioned above, instead of visiting hundreds and hundreds of webs to check if they have been updated.
References:
- Ignacio Palou. (2004, May 18). ¿Qué es RSS-y XML, RDF, Atom…? In Microsiervos. Retrieved 21:14, February 7, 2009, from
http://www.microsiervos.com/archivo/internet/que-es-rss-y-xml-rdf-atom.html - RSS ¿qué es? (2000). In Euroresidentes. Retrieved 21: 32, February 7, 2009, from
http://www.euroresidentes.com/Diversion/Internet/rss.htm - Aggregator. (2009, February 3). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 22:01, February 7, 2009, from
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Aggregator&oldid=268231537 - RSS. (2009, February 6). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 21:49, February 7, 2009, from
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=RSS&oldid=268919198
