The basics on what you need to know about RSS

What does RSS mean?

RSS may mean three different things. The original RSS (RDF Site Summary RSS 0.9) was developed by Dan Libby for Netscape. After a couple of months, Rich Site Summary or RSS 0.91 was created a simpler & easier version which they later lost interest, leaving it without an owner. Since more and more users were using RSS, Winer made an adapted version of RSS 0.91 for Userland, claiming it as his own. Microsoft in 2005, developed Really Simple Syndication in relation to its Simple Sharing Extensions.

What is RSS?

RSS is a XML file format for syndicating content and news in the web. It is usually used by websites that needs constant updates for its content regularly for news websites such as (CNN, BBC and Reuters) and weblogs. It will give one’s webpage more traffic, which is now more widely used in marketing, web publications and virus reports. Today, large and small websites alike are usually RSS-enabled.

For example, you’re an avid fan of baseball and you want to share something recent about one of the players. Other than content, you can also attach multimedia files, like videos or pictures. By using RSS feeds, other Internet users subscribed to RSS-enabled sites can read your “headline” for free. They will also track for changes and updates using news aggregators, which will be discussed later on.

In my next article, I will give you more information on how RSS work and how you can make a RSS feed.  Till then, see you in my next article.