Cameron Olthuis

I’ve tried explaining what RSS (feeds) is and I can tell you it’s no easy task. So thanks to Paul Stamatiou for pointing us to The unified feed theory which explains RSS in a way that’s simple and easy to understand, even if you are computer illerate.

A “feed” is a way of syndicating almost any type of content (be it articles, essays, plain or rich text, images, audio, or video) in a simple and portable way. Feeds are generally used to distribute frequently updated content, such as news and notifications. An example of this would be CNNs feeds, which provide headline feeds on various topics to keep their readers up-to-date with news.

Many people who have many Web sites they visit regularly, use feeds to be notified of these updates rather than visiting hundreds of Web sites each day.

I think it’s important to simply exactly what RSS means for the masses, especially if it’s going to play a major role in the future of the web. Thanks to Colin for making it easy.

Paul also has a great tutorial on Getting Started with RSS. He’ll walk you through what RSS is, why you should use it, and how to get started using it.

If you aren’t already using RSS I suggest you read these articles and get yourself started. Then come back and grab my feed.

RSS