|
The sheer size of the Web presents problems both for those looking to find information and those looking to share it. Even the most powerful search engines often only present a narrow and somewhat out-of-date view of the Web, featuring sites in their index that are either big and wealthy or laser-focused on the smallest of niches. Medium-sized sites with frequently-updated content are often left out of the loop.
RSS is one solution to the problem. Alternatively known as Rich Site Summary or Really Simple Syndication, RSS allows users to track sites they find interesting and relevant when new content becomes available. Essentially, an RSS feed is a list of headlines and other information encoded in a special format (XML) so that it can be easily read and used by another program or website. RSS allows websites to "feed" or syndicate an updating list of their content to others. Often, this content is just headlines or short summaries with links back to the originating site, but increasingly sites are making full text articles and multimedia content (such as podcasting) available too.
Programs that read RSS feeds are called "news aggregators" or "news readers," and allow users to display the feeds from all the different websites they select in one place. Thus, you can view dozens or hundreds of headlines across multiple sites at once and easily track newly updated content. To use RSS, you can install a dedicated news reader and then add feeds from websites by clicking on the "subscribe" or "XML" orange button that links to the feed. Alternatively, you can use a web-based news reader such as Bloglines or My Yahoo, where RSS feeds can be integrated into your personal page. Some web browsers (such as Firefox) include support for RSS, automatically detecting RSS feeds and allowing users to create "live bookmarks." A robust list of available news aggregators is available at Wikipedia. |
|
