RSS Explained in Plain English [RSS Awareness Day]

RSS logo May 1, was RSS Awareness Day. I missed it as I was offline during last week. But its better late than never, so this post!

In old days people used to bookmark websites which they want to stay connected to. The process was, bookmark a site and then manually open it to check if website/page has been updated. I do still use bookmarks, but the purpose is only to note down important web pages. Updates must be tracked via formats like RSS. Its easier, simpler and fully automatic approach.

So what is RSS?

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is a format used to deliver information from websites and pages that get updated regularly. An RSS document (which is called feed) contains either a summary or the full content from a website.

The main benefit of RSS is that it enables people to stay connected with their favorite websites without having to visit them. Once you subscribe to a particular RSS feed, you will automatically receive updates from the website that publishes the feed, whenever they release new content. (excerpt from rssday.org)

Check this video…

If a picture is worth 1000 words, then video must be worth a million words! And videos created by common craft team are surely worth a billion words. Here is video they created to explain RSS…

(Download this video)

Still if you left with some doubt in your mind visit rssday.org and I bet you will learn what RSS is for sure! Also have a look at wikipedia entry on RSS.

So next time better looks for RSS feeds than bookmarking your favorite blogs/news sites. 🙂

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