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RSS Technology
What is RSS?
The Internet today contains a wealth of information. Avid Internet users visit
many interesting websites and read many articles. Information and web pages
make their way to the users' favorite folder for viewing later. In course
of time, re-visiting these bookmarks becomes a major task for users especially when
the number of bookmarks grows. A better technique for users is to receive
information about updates to their favorite websites automatically.
Many websites have realized this problem and have started providing information
in a common format. RSS is a web content syndication (distribution) format.
The abbreviation is variously used to refer to the following standards:
- Really Simple Syndication (RSS 2.0)
- Rich Site Summary (RSS 0.91, RSS 1.0)
- RDF Site Summary (RSS 0.9 and 1.0)
- Real-time Simple Syndication (RSS 2.0)
It is a lightweight XML format designed for syndicating information. Although
RSS was initially conceived as a format for syndicating news, pretty much anything
that can be broken down into discrete items can be syndicated via RSS.
Many websites publish content, which they would like to share with others.
RSS provides a way for websites to distribute their content outside of a web browser.
RSS is an easy way to keep you automatically up to date about websites you like
to visit regularly. RSS files do not have a common file extension, although
they frequently end in one of .XML, .RSS, or .RDF (note that other extensions may
also be used).
How to read RSS feeds?
Internet users can use special software like newsreaders and RSS-aggregators to
organize RSS feeds and get automatic updates. A product like Active Web Reader
allows you to read RSS files. Active Web Reader in fact goes beyond simply
reading feed content. It can also organize RSS feeds, manage updates, monitor
website changes and search for information online. It keeps you automatically
updated about the latest changes by checking RSS feeds and displaying items from
them.
RSS aggregators are set up to check for updates periodically in the feeds you subscribe,
commonly once every day. In other words, the information comes to you, rather
than you having to go to the websites yourself. This saves a tremendous amount
of time. Conversely, you can read many more feeds in the same amount of time.
Many people read several hundred feeds. That just would not be feasible without
an RSS aggregator. Additionally, you avoid all the non-new information on
a web page, including the ads, menus, etc.
How to find RSS feeds?
Go to the website whose RSS feed you are looking for. If it has one, then
it probably includes a link to it. Try looking on the page’s menu (usually
left side or right side) and the footer. Most often websites advertise RSS
feeds with small icons. The most common is an XML icon like this
 , but there are a number of variations
on the labels (RSS, RSS2, XML, RDF, Atom), color, and size, such as
and
 . Other times there may not be
an image, but text with one of those labels, or a link labeled “Syndicate this site.”
RSS readers like Active Web Reader also provide a way to find RSS feeds automatically
while browsing web pages through a feature called RSS Auto Discovery. They
provide a direct method to select discovered feeds and organizing them.
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