RSS is the acronym used to describe the de facto standard for the
syndication
of Web content. RSS is an
XML-based format and while it can be used in different ways for content distribution, its most
widespread usage is in distributing news headlines on the Web. A Web site that
wants to allow other sites to publish some of its content creates an RSS
document and registers the document with an RSS publisher. A user that can read
RSS-distributed content can use the content on a different site. Syndicated
content can include data such as news feeds, events listings, news stories,
headlines, project updates, excerpts from discussion forums or even corporate
information.
Because there are different versions of RSS, the term RSS is most frequently
used as a name to mean the syndication of Web content, rather than as an
acronym for its founding technology. When using the name RSS the speaker may be
referring to any of the following versions of Web content syndication:
- RDF Site Summary (RSS 0.9, RSS 1.0)
- Rich Site Summary (RSS 0.91, RSS 1.0)
- Really Simple Syndication (RSS 2.0)
When using the term RSS, most will use it in reference to Rich Site Summary
or the previous version called RDF Site Summary. When referring to
Really Simple Syndication, it will usually be called RSS 2.0, not RSS.
There are several versions of RSS available, with the most commonly implemented
version being RSS 0.91. The most current version, however, is RSS 2.0 and it
is backward-compatible with RSS 0.91. RSS was originally developed by
Netscape. The RSS 2.0 specification was authored by Dave Winer.
Compare with Atom, an alternative open source
XML-based Web content and metadata syndication format.
See also "How to
Create an RSS Feed" in the
Quick Reference section of Webopedia.
