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In the three short months I’ve been blogging, I’ve learned a great deal about the use of RSS and its potential as a communication channel, but lately, it seems as though every week there is a new super duper application or software programme that’s going to change the way we use it. So to be honest, I’m getting confused! So in order to build my knowledge on RSS, I’m going to start from the beginning. I’ll post a series of short posts on the subject, including what it is, its history, its uses, its importance, the future of it and how it will be used in PR related issues.

Basically my reasons for doing this are for my own benefit, so I won’t be going into it too technically and I’m not expecting to be quoted as an expert on the subject just yet. But if you spot any mistakes, or feel I missed out an important point, the feedback would be appreciated.

What is RSS?

RSS is an acronym, but depending on who you ask or which website you read, it may stand for Really Simple Syndication, Rich Site Summary or RDF Site Summary. The most used term would probably be the former of these three.
RSS is a text based format, a type of XML. You may have noticed these three letters (XML) before, as RSS feeds are often labelled this ?¢‚Ǩ‚Äú although not highly important, worth mentioning all the same. Another note of equally unimportance is the different versions of RSS. There are five:

1. 0.90
2. 0.91
3. 1.0
4. 0.9x
5. 2.0

RSS feeds (which are also called RSS channels or RSS files) usually contain a title, a summary (or indeed the full article) and a link to a URL. To read an RSS feed you need an RSS reader. Again, these are known under different names: RSS aggregator, news reader or news aggregator. These are applications specifically used to read RSS feeds, and come in two types: software that you download, and online readers.

If you track several feeds, the use of an RSS reader is a necessity. RSS readers are set up to check for new items in the feeds you are subscribed to. This means that fresh news comes to you, rather than you going to the news. Thus saving a tremendous amount of time, time you would have used sifting through websites with no guarantee of new and updated information.

RSS feeds can also come via email, if you subscribe a feed to various services like My Yahoo! or my MSN, you will receive a periodical digest of your subscriptions.

Next article: The history of RSS