First, as I have written about previously, RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication. But, what's syndication? It's a regular exchange of up-to-date information.
Originally called "newsfeeds," RSS feeds regularly feed news from one site to another. How do you get the feeds? You subscribe just like you do to a magazine or newspaper.
RSS feeds are written in a particular language referred to as XML. Due to this, RSS feeds need special "reader" software. If you'd like to get free reader software, the most popular is Feedreader (www.feedreader.com). Readers also serve as "aggregators" which provide users with a short view of each new article that arrives at a destination. This makes it easy for the user to sort through the information delivered. The first aggregator was Radio Userland co-invented in 1997 by Userland and Netscape.
The advantages of using RSS feeds are: 1) smaller bandwidth is used, 2) clear semantics (apparently cleaner than HTML), and 3) time saving (news is delivered to your web address automatically - thereby involving less time spent surfing on the web).
The book referred to is listed below and can be found electronically through the Bird Library website. Enjoy!
This a first, more specific taste of RSS feeds. More next week.
Wittenbrink, Heinz. "Chapter 1 - What are Newsfeeds?". RSS and Atom: Understanding and Implementing Content Feeds and Syndication. Packt Publishing. © 2005. Books24x7.
Deborah,
ReplyDeleteIt is evident that you are spending time to really research your topic. This particular post was helpful for me as I am not familiar with RSS as I stated last week. I found that the simple breakdown from this textbook source really made it clear as to what RSS is and how it is used. I actually contacted my aunt because as I read she was the first person I thought of. It was funny because I thought I made a new discovery of something she would definitely be interested in and go figure; it wasn't news to her she was very familiar with it.
Thanks for sharing all of this about RSS, Mickey. I had no clue about it at all when we started 632 this past spring. =)
ReplyDeleteThank you for your information.I'm waiting to learn more about RSS.
ReplyDeleteThanks Ashley. It's still not completely clear to me, but I'm learning more each week.
ReplyDeleteLeigh,
ReplyDeleteI cannot believe how much I am learning about all of these electronic tools. I still remember Gerry's second class when you all had your blog up and running and I was still trying to understand what a blog was.
It's really fun...a bit overwhelming...but fun.
Mickey, considering the blog for 611 was my first one ever, you are definitely not far behind. =) I think blogs are very useful for communicating ideas. For classes, they're great to help think about multiple topics. It's also nice that everyone keeps up with their blogs in this class, so there's always something to read!
ReplyDeleteWhoops- you know I meant 632! ;)
ReplyDelete