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RSS – Beginners Introduction

RSS was one of the top web trends and web technologies of 2006. Do you use RSS? Do you know what RSS is? Well I thought I’d put together an RSS introduction for beginners and everyday users, since there is always something missing in an RSS reader.

What is RSS?

Really Simple Syndication or Rich Site Summary (RSS) is an XML-based format for web content distribution. An RSS feed records any new changes to a particular website that you frequent and automatically updates you. You can think of RSS as an Internet TIVO that organizes your favorite websites, and will notify you when there is an update on one of your web sites.

Who uses RSS?

Many news-related sites (Slashdot, Digg, CNN), weblogs, video blogs and other online publishers syndicate their content as an RSS Feed to whoever wants it.

Why use RSS?

For people who regularly use the web there are many reasons to use RSS. First, it allows you to easily stay informed with websites you are interested in by retrieving summaries of the latest content from the sites. Therefore saving you time by not needing to visit each site individually. Also, for some of us anonymity is essential and with RSS you ensure your privacy, by not needing to join each website’s email newsletter.

What does an RSS feed look like?

Here’s a sample RSS 0.91 feed (adapted from XML.com’s RSS feed). Please note that I have added a ‘-’ in each XML tag to allow your web browser to show the code and not to have the browser interpret it as code. Therefore, in proper XML there is no ‘-’ after a ‘< ':

< -rss version="0.91">
< -channel>
< -title>XML.com< -/title>
< -link>http://www.xml.com/< -/link>
< -description>XML.com features a rich mix of information and services for the XML community.< -/description>
< -language>en-us< -/language>
< -item>
< -title>Normalizing XML, Part 2< -/title>
< -link>http://www.xml.com/pub/a/2002/12/04/normalizing.html< -/link>
< -description>In this second and final look at applying relational normalization techniques to W3C XML Schema data modeling, Will Provost discusses when not to normalize, the scope of uniqueness and the fourth and fifth normal forms.< -/description>
< -/item>
< -/channel>
< -/rss>

An RSS feed comprises of a channel, which has a title, link, description, and (optional) language, followed by a series of items, each of which have a title, link, and description.

How do I use RSS?

Before you can subscribe to a website, the webmaster must have an RSS feed for you to subscribe to. Therefore, there is a possibility that you will not be able to subscribe to a site you had in mind. Many sites display a small icon such as or contain the acronyms RSS, XML, or RDF to let you know a feed is available.

The next step is choosing Feed Reader or News Aggregator software that will allow you to grab the RSS feeds from various sites and display them for you to read and use. If you have an account at My Yahoo, AOL or MSN, then your RSS reader will be post to your account page. However, there are separate readers you can use, both paid and free. Feed Demon can be purchased for $29.99, but I’d recommend beginning with a free reader like Google Reader until you figure out specifics you are looking for in an RSS reader. Also, IE7 (internet explorer) and Firefox2 both have RSS readers built in due to the recent surge in users using and demanding RSS readers.

Tags: RSS