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RSS is a document that is called a feed,
channel or web feed. It contains either a summary of content
or the full text from the associated website. It is a set of
web feed formats which are used to publish the updated content
such as blog entries, news headlines or podcasts. With this
document people can keep up with their favorite websites in an
automated manner that is easy as compared to checking them
manually.
RSS documents are read using software that is called an "RSS
reader," "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. All the RSS formats are specified using XML, a
generic specification for the creation of data formats.
RSS syndicates news and the content of news-like sites,
including major news sites like Wired, news-oriented community
sites 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. |
