What is RSS ?

Posted by rudihd on November 19, 2007

For other meanings of RSS, see RSS (disambiguation).
For RSS feeds from Wikipedia, see Wikipedia:Syndication.
RSS

Screenshot of an RSS feed as seen in Mozilla Thunderbird
File extension:
.rss, .xml
MIME type:
application/rss+xml (Registration Being Prepared)[1]
Extended from:
XML
RSS (which, in its latest format, stands for “Really Simple Syndication”) is a family of web feed formats used to publish frequently updated content such as blog entries, news headlines or podcasts. An RSS document, which is called a “feed”, “web feed”, or “channel”, contains either a summary of content from an associated web site or the full text. RSS makes it possible for people to keep up with their favorite web sites in an automated manner that’s easier than checking them manually.
RSS content can be read using software called a “feed reader” or an “aggregator.” The user subscribes to a feed by entering the feed’s link into the reader or by clicking an RSS icon in a browser that initiates the subscription process. The reader checks the user’s subscribed feeds regularly for new content, downloading any updates that it finds.
The initials “RSS” are used to refer to the following formats:
Really Simple Syndication (RSS 2.0)
RDF Site Summary (RSS 1.0 and RSS 0.90)
Rich Site Summary (RSS 0.91)
RSS formats are specified using XML, a generic specification for the creation of data formats.