RSS is a sort of Web feed, a data format used to provide content regularly updated. It is widely used by news sites, blogs and other online publishers. An RSS document’s filename extension can be .rss or .xml, and can contain text, full or sumarized, as well as metadata (data about other data).
There are many RSS-aware programs, called news aggregators or readers: You can have them based on the web, on your desktop, movile phone, or anything with an Internet connection. When you choose one and create and account for it, all you have to do is add the website you want to recieve the upadtes from adding the URL to the list of your reader or directly clic on the RSS button (image at the top) of the website. That way any update the site makes, will appear in your reader and you’ll be able to watch it from there, not having to go to the site.
RSS is full of benefits, such as:
- You can stay informed pretty easily about anything you want to, news or new posts on your favourite blogs or websites.
- It saves you time, because you don’t need to visit all the websites you want to watch individually; Everything goes into one place.
- It is safe; You don’t need to suscribe to any newsletter, so your privacy doesn’t get in danger.
If this wasn’t clear enough, and I hope it was, just watch this video. It’ll clear your mind, and you’ll have a laugh as well.
Sources:
RSS info from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSS_(file_format)
http://www.whatisrss.com/
http://www.xml.com/pub/a/2002/12/18/dive-into-xml.html?page=2
Clearer info about uses of RSS from
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0klgLsSxGsU&eurl=
Metadata info from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metadata
Picture from
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/43/Feed-icon.svg
