RSS

Really Simple Syndication

or: RSS Feeds

Allow anyone to subscribe to updates to websites, blogs or wiki-pages, creating an interlinked 'blogosphere' and allowing any user to manage a multitude of information streams.

Definition

Definition by the Webopedia:

"Short for RDF Site Summary or Rich Site Summary, an XML format for syndicating Web content. 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 includes such data as news feeds, events listings, news stories, headlines, project updates, excerpts from discussion forums or even corporate information." (http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/R/RSS.html0

The Washington Post explains: “RSS lets Web sites publish free "feeds" of their content, which a program called a newsreader collects on a set schedule, displaying new headlines and links for you to read within the newsreader or, with one click, in your Web browser" (http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&contentId=A55027-2004Mar13&notFound=true)

Some sites offer the same functions as an RSS reader, i.e. the possibility to combine various blogs in folders and to monitor them all from the same place, see http://www.bloglines.com/

Typology of RSS Feed Tools

"1. Feed Creators, which are used to automatically publish feeds when content is changed, without much additional effort; this has led to a veritable explosion in the availability of feeds

2. Feed Sources: Web sites, News, Listings, Blogs, PR announcements, Search Results, even Ebay shopping - they all have feeds now

3. Feed Finders, such as Feedster and Blogdigger, help to locate feeds of interest

4. Feed Readers, both online and offline, commonly offer bundled functionality for filtering, collating and searching feeds

5. Feed Filters and Aggregators, such as BlastFeed, help to organize a large number of feeds and consume them efficiently" (http://blog.softwareabstractions.com/the_software_abstractions/2006/12/disruptive_tech.html)