In: Root » » Web design tips » RSS Really Simple Syndication is an easy way to distribute Web content
RSSRSS (Really Simple Syndication) is an easy way to distribute Web content (for example, newsfeeds, sports events, weather, other subjects of personal interest) from one Web site to multiple others. A user must subscribe to a syndicated feed. RSS files can be automatically updated. Content should be written in XML. The simplicity of RSS (that is, the size of the data transfer and speed of transfer) makes it a very useful application to have for mobile devices (podcasts). You can easily imagine getting live feeds from the stock exchange when values of a selected portfolio of stocks change. You may, as well, look into space shuttle activities or our future trips to Mars and beyond. It is easier to have these feeds keep you abreast of what interests you in the happenings of the world, rather than your having to visit a few dozen sites several times a day. Modern operating systems have RSS built in. For example, Windows Vista has an RSS reader as part of its SideBar utility, and there’s an RSS database engine built into the operating system. Mac OS X 10.4 and later also has RSS built in as a screen saver and widget. RSS is a great way for your customers, employees, clients, and yourself to get up-to-date information as it’s released. Keep this in mind when marketing your RSS feed. Origin of RSSThe background of the origin and development of RSS is a reminder that, even with the best of intentions, smart people with sound ambition and good technology can still go astray in the confusing morass of copyrights and property rights. The origin of RSS goes way back in the almost mystical 1990s when Internet startups were almost as common as acne on a teen, and dot-com millionaires were popping up like toads in spring. It was Apple, of course, that led the way. One man in particular at Apple, R. V. Guha, continued his development of the syndication technology with another flagship of innovation and savvy, Netscape. As part of Apple’s Advanced Technology Group, Guha created a Meta Content Framework (MCF), which, as its name implies, specified formatting for metadata for Web sites. This is the foundation on which his subsequent development of the Resource Description Framework (RDF) took place at Netscape. RDF has a structure that translates easily into an object-oriented format attribute and values such that the statement ‘‘These autumn hills are of variegated colors’’ could be decomposed into autumnalHills.color(variegated). These specifications became part of the RDF framework under the aegis of W3C, and further information on it can be found at the W3C site (http://www.w3.org/RDF). Indeed, RDF is so widely adaptable that it has been the modeling milieu for quite a number of syntax formats. In the late 1990s, versions of RSS (called RSS .9 and RSS .91) came out based on the RDF specs. RSS .9 was a syndication feed initially developed for only Netscape feeds through its portal My.Netscape.com. Subsequent developments removed RDF elements and replaced them with another syndication format produced by Dave Winer. This version was known as RSS 0.94. In the meantime, mergers and acquisitions killed off this promising new technology for Netscape for a number of years, during which time it continued to be developed by Winer at another company, UserLand. Depending upon which working group you follow, RSS could mean ‘‘Rich Site Summary,’’ or ‘‘RDF Site Summary,’’ as well as other interpretations. Despite identical acronyms, they were pretty dissimilar: one had a DTD component, and another didn’t; one provided syndication in the way we would understand it today, and another simply summarized site contents. And, as to be expected with competing groups working not necessarily in harmony with each other, you had incompatible versions being produced. Most versions are backward compatible, but, because RSS was almost two separate formats incidentally named, even that is not as useful as it might otherwise be. For those interested in the specifics, refer to the Web site at http://diveintomark.org/archives/2004/02/04/ incompatible-rss. UserLand Software failed to obtain trademark rights to RSS. But that did not stop development of RSS by UserLand and other groups. RSS 1.0 (through the combined efforts of Guha within the RSS-Dev working group) came out in 2000, adding support for XML namespaces, and brought back support for RDF. RSS 2.0 came out in 2002, but it was legally unclear as to who owned the rights (as well as what was open source, what was proprietary, and what was Netscape’s role) to it. So, another syndication version, Atom, came out in 2003. It was then adopted as the official syndication standard by Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). |
legal disclaimer
Our website is not responsible for the information contained by this article. Web-articles is a free articles resource.
Suggestion: If you need fresh, daily updated content for your website, feel free to use our service. Click here for more information.
related articles
All HTML documents contain the following elements, which define the overall structure of the document: <HTML> <HEAD> <TITLE>Your title goes here</TITLE> </HEAD> <BODY> The body of your document goes here. </BODY> </HTML> As the preceding example shows, HTML tags are generally used in pairs that enclose portions of your document. The beginning tag, such as <BODY>, signals the start of specific formatting for t...
The following sections explain the importance of page settings screen size considerations, page length, and page layout to control how your pages look in a Web browser. Screen size considerations Most computer users are used to scrolling up and down to view pages that are longer than the height of the screen. But few users like to scroll left and right to view pages that are too wide. To avoid horizontal scrolling, design your pages so that they fit within the width of the screen. If yo...
3. Working with Graphics, Sounds, and Videos when creating a website
This article presents the techniques for adding graphics, sounds, and video elements to your Web pages. You find out how to add images and image maps to your Web pages, link and embed sound and video files, and use a background sound that plays when your Web page displays. File Formats for Image, Sound, and Video You can choose from many different file formats for images, sounds, and videos. Fortunately, you can construct most Web pages using only the formats that we describe in the following se...
4. How to publish your website on the web
This article presents the procedures that you must follow to make your Web pages available so that others can see them. You find out how to test your Web pages, publish your Web pages with the Web Publishing Wizard, and use FTP to post Web files. Finally, you discover how to announce your site via the major search services. Previewing Your Web Pages Before you post your Web pages to a Web server, it’s a good idea to test them. You can preview your Web pages from your hard drive with a Web ...
5. How to promote a webiste
Obviously, you want your Web site to be more popular than Britney Spears and it can be, if you promote it well. Search engines, such as Yahoo!, Lycos, Google, and the rest of them, are always scouring the Internet and recording information about Web pages. Individual search engines work a little differently: Some record information about every word on a Web page and some look only at titles and headings. The search engines store this information in giant databases. When you conduct a search of the Intern...
6. Image editing programs like Adobe Photoshop
Image-editing programs Following are some popular image-editing applications: - The trial edition of Adobe Photoshop CS3 This download is rated highly by users and ranked first in image-editing downloads with more than 8 million to date. This download requires site registration before use. There is also a shareware version available for Apple users. - PhotoImpact X3 This is a user-friendly image editor that actually has most of the editing tools that most people would need and use f...
7. Ilustrator Flash Professional Photoshop Extended and Fireworks
Illustrator The Illustrator application allows the user to efficiently create vector graphics, and then seamlessly use the result with other applications included in CS3. The developer can prepare content for Web, mobile, and print media. The interface of the CS3 version has been modified to provide more efficient utilization of the workspace. For example, the Tools palette has been streamlined from two columns to one that docks inconspicuously along the borders of the screen. Simultaneously, more ...
8. Adobe Creative Suite 3 Photoshop and Dreamweaver
Adobe Creative Suite 3 Photoshop and Dreamweaver The purpose of this article is to provide a brief look at some of the tools available for use in Web site design, and point you to where there is more in-depth coverage of each technology highlighted in later articles. For readers working within the constraints of a variety of budgets, this article describes a range of image-editing tools that are available on the Web either as freeware, shareware, or trial versions of c...
9. How to design a web site for the mobile web
Designing for the Mobile Web There are more than 50 companies producing mobile telephones in significant and marketable quantities. By 2009, projections indicate there will be 3 billion mobile phone users worldwide. The market for the delivery of Web content to these mobile device users dwarfs the market for desktops. There is theoretically unlimited potential for expansion of the Web (or Web 2.0) into these devices, and we are now on the cutting edge of Web site design for Mobile Web (or the ‘‘Ubi...
10. Origins of the Internet and How a router routes
Origins of the Internet One of the first ideas to get out of your mind (if it is there) is that the Internet is a monolithic creation that came about at a single point in time and at a single location. The Internet is a conglomerate of overlapping and mutually reinforcing technologies from computer science, data storage and retrieval sciences (the once lowly data processing), and communications that have been developed (and are still being developed) over the past half century. From inception in the Depart...