RSS Basics

RSS Basics

RSS is a feed format that is used to distribute frequently-published content. The feed format is a standardized subset up the mark-up language known as XML. The resulting feeds can be pushed to RSS readers and Web pages.
The initials RSS can stand for different things, including Rich Site Summary or Really Simple Syndication. RSS content is often referred to as syndicated content because of its wide distribution. Users can subscribe to the RSS feeds of their choice, and then have access to the updated information as it comes in.
RSS RSS The presence of an RSS feed is often signaled by an orange icon of some type. Two examples are shown here.
RSS is an important part of the participatory Web. It has been said that RSS is the "glue" that holds the social Web together. You will encounter RSS in all sorts of places and used for all kinds of purposes. Wherever content is frequently added, you will probably find an RSS feed. This is because many sites on the social Web automatically create RSS feeds and add to the feed as you add content. If you want to keep up with the latest contributions by people on the social Web, reading RSS feeds is one of the best ways to do it.

Reading RSS feeds

To experience RSS, you first need to subscribe to the feed using an rss reader, or aggregator. This is software that displays new items posted to your feed subscriptions and stores the old updates. It is similar to e-mail software, except that the incoming items are derived from RSS feeds.
There are all kinds of RSS readers. Popular Web browsers offer integrated RSS readers. You can also download a reader to your computer or mobile device. Or, you can use an RSS reader on the Web, for example the Google Reader. The advantage here is that you can access your RSS feeds from any computer that is connected to the Web.
Subscribing to an RSS feed is as simple as adding its address to your reader's subscription list. Below is an example from the Google Reader.
Google Reader
A useful list of RSS readers is available on the site RSS Specifications.
tip! RSS feeds can be imported into Web pages. You might be looking at a "typical" Web page without realizing that the content is coming from an RSS feed. There are various programming techniques that make this possible. Or, you can use one of the many user-friendly services on the Web such as RSS2HTML.

Sources of RSS feeds

As noted earlier, RSS is especially popular for distributing news updates and for announcing new content added to the social Web. Various media types can also be updated via RSS feed, including podcasts. A few examples are shown below.
If you click on any of the feed links below, you will be taking the first step toward subscribing to the feed. After clicking, you will be prompted to save the feed to your browser's feed reader, if you have one. Otherwise, you can click on the feed link with your right mouse button and select the option to Copy Link Location. You can then paste the location into the feed reader of your choice.
News updates: RSS Environment news from The New York Times
Blogs: RSS postings and RSS comments from the blog Librarians Matter
Documents on social bookmarking sites: RSS Google-related bookmarks on CiteULike
Tagged items on photo sharing sites: RSS "nature" tag on Flickr
Twitter updates: RSS Al Gore

Creating RSS feeds

How do you create an RSS feed? Well, usually you don't have to lift a finger. As noted above, creating RSS feeds is an automatic feature of many sites on the social Web. For example, if you maintain a blog, the blog software will create the feed.
If you want to create an RSS feed on your own, it isn't too difficult. Some people manually create feeds to distribute their podcasts. Below is a snippet from an RSS template for creating a podcast suitable for uploading to iTunes. Notice how much metadata the feed includes - data about the data included in the feed.