It is very likely that you have at least heard of RSS, if from no other place than in my recent review of Google Reader. Well, in this primer we will dig down a bit and learn what RSS is capable of, and how its being used out there on the Internet.
Most everyone has heard about Google Reader at this point. But I am sure there are more people out there who don’t know an RSS feed from a banner ad, and how Google’s product leverages this technology.
First we need to discuss what RSS is. RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication. The RSS feed format uses XML to define and standardize different fields in a data stream. This stream, or feed, can be interpreted by a RSS reader (also sometimes known as an aggregator) and presented to the end user in a clean, easy to navigate format. RSS feeds can contain text and URL links to media and pictures, or extra markup tags. The RSS specification allows for full-text or just snippets to be syndicated.
Almost all feed readers will manage multiple RSS feeds, keep track of what articles are read or unread, and will allow some sort of tagging and selecting articles as ‘favorites’. They usually will also present a view that shows articles from some or all subscribed feeds together sorted by date or other criteria to the user. This is sometimes called the ‘river of news’ view. Google Reader is one such RSS app with an additional trick up its sleeve — it is completely browser-based. It can also, however, be used off-line with a browser plug-in called Google Gears.