RSS is a format for syndicating news and the content of news-like sites, including major news sites like Wired, news-oriented community sites like Slashdot, and personal weblogs. But it's not just for news. Pretty much anything that can be broken down into discrete items can be syndicated via RSS: the "recent changes" page of a wiki, a changelog of CVS checkins, even the revision history of a book. Once information about each item is in RSS format, an RSS-aware program can check the feed for changes and react to the changes in an appropriate way. RSS-aware programs called news aggregators are popular in the weblogging community. Many weblogs make content available in RSS. A news aggregator can help you keep up with all your favorite weblogs by checking their RSS feeds and displaying new items from each of them.

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Seams a bit brief and doesnt help that much,

A better description is:

RSS is a short file that can have up to 25 little titles that can be fed into a browser or reader and can display some output that. They are useful for news sites and sites that have a lot of news items that need to be counted. Search google for tips on how to make a feed and ask google what XML is about at the same time that will also help you.

Made that up out my head maybe i should make a tutorial on maing a feed but i wouldnt want to confuse anyone.

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If you want a free RSS aggregator to read your RSS feeds, I recommend Bloglines at http://www.bloglines.com. It's online-based, so you need no download and install anything. And it's very very useful. And it's free!

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Really Simple Syndication (RSS) is a lightweight XML format designed for sharing headlines and other Web content. Think of it as a distributable "What's New" for your site. Originated by UserLand in 1997 and subsequently used by Netscape to fill channels for Netcenter, RSS has evolved into a popular means of sharing content between sites (including the BBC, CNET, CNN, Disney, Forbes, Motley Fool, Wired, Red Herring, Salon, Slashdot, ZDNet, and more). RSS solves myriad problems webmasters commonly face, such as increasing traffic, and gathering and distributing news. RSS can also be the basis for additional content distribution services.

RSS Syntax
RSS defines an XML grammar (a set of HTML-like tags) for sharing news. Each RSS text file contains both static information about your site, plus dynamic information about your new stories, all surrounded by matching start and end tags.

Each story is defined by an <item> tag, which contains a headline TITLE, URL, and DESCRIPTION. Here's an example:

...
<item>
<title>RSS Resources</title>
<link>http://www.webreference.com/authoring/languages/xml/rss/</link>
<description>Defined in XML, the Rich Site Summary (RSS) format has
quietly become a dominant format for distributing headlines on the Web.
Our list of links gives you the tools, tips and tutorials you need to get
started using RSS. 0323</description>
</item>
...

 

 

 

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Thanks for those great descriptions of RSS. In order to create an RSS document/channel, what do I need to do?

Is it as simple as wrapping the correct XML tags in the correct spots or is there more to it?

Thanks,

p

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thnx. much better description.. It's nice to know the very basics.

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what all i know abt RSS is

Realy Simple Syndication, it is in XML Format to share the data between the Blogs and Web Sites.

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The letters RSS mean a little different thing depending on source, I don't believe there is an official name for it, is there?

Really Simple Syndication seems to be the most popular but "RDF Site Summary" and "Rich Site Summary" are also used and in fact what I still think when the acronym RSS comes up. They all mean the same thing, just different names.

The "RDF Site Summary" is in my opinion the "most official" and RDF is an official W3C acronym for "Resource Description Framework". This is also why RSS files are sometimes named with .rdf extension.

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Is rss a better way to provide content/fils for download for sites? or is this just another way of providing textual data to people browsing your site?

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It's content for my site...he...he...he!

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