There is little doubt that RSS is a disruptive, game-changing technology. The so called Really Simple Syndication (previously also called Rich Site Summary and RDF Site Summary), has powered a fundamentally new way to deliver and consume web content. Before RSS, users had to visit individual web sites to find out what was new. Today, news is delivered via RSS directly to web browsers, desktops and aggregators. With RSS, the dynamics of the web changed into an on-demand medium.RSS usage has since spread beyond simple news delivery. Companies like de.licio.us, Flickr and YouTube added another dimension to RSS - i.e. they made it an integral part of the Social Web (social networking, photos, video, etc). Also Google built Google Base, its Craigslist competitor, entirely on RSS. Other companies too are beginning to extend RSS, sometimes with proprietary extensions.

In short, because of RSS ubiquity it is now a very attractive delivery medium for all kinds of content. However because the basic format is simple and primitive, there is no way to encode semantics without building an extension. So in this post, we look at RSS today and ask if RSS is evolving into a tool for delivering complex, semantically rich information.

Brief History of RSS

RSS is an XML-based language and its early roots can be traced to back to 1995, to Apple Labs and then slightly later to Netscape, Userland Software and Microsoft. The first major use of RSS was in 1999 when it was integrated into the My Netscape portal. So RSS is not a new kid on the block, in fact it was around way before the new Social Web came about. So why did it not take off earlier? It appears to have been misunderstood and de-emphasized by AOL, and was downplayed after the Netscape acquisition.

RSS survived mainly because of one man’s heavy-lifting - Dave Winer. Dave authored RSS 0.91, RSS 0.92 and then the widely used RSS 2.0 specification. Over the years he has drummed the beat of RSS on his blog and every corner of the web, until it got adopted by companies such as Microsoft and Yahoo. [Ed: there were also heated format wars during this time, with RSS 1.0 and then ATOM, but we won’t re-hash those here!]

RSS in a Nutshell

RSS is rather simple language to describe the latest headlines (or the full content of articles). The following explanation of RSS is based on the RSS 2.0 format, but other formats are similar. Here is a sample of what it looks like:

Each RSS file consists of items delivered in a single channel. Each item has a title, a link and a description (attributes). The on-demand aspect of RSS is enabled by two timestamps - the lastBuildDate in the channel indicates the last time this channel changed, while the pubDate of the item indicates when the item was published. RSS aggregators (a.k.a. RSS readers) take advantage of these timestamps to decide when new content is available.

Source and More :  http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/the_future_of_rss.php

Related Posts

• A Lexus from Minority Report on eBay for $88,000
A car from future up for auction! Sounds incongruous, right? In the year 2054, some cars will be...
• Free-space display is TV of the future Youtube Video
The company that created the M2 Heliodisplay mid-air projector has just released their new M3/M3...
• MINOGUE DEFENDS MARTINEZ AGAINST CHEATING REPORTS
Singer KYLIE MINOGUE has rubbished reports her ex-boyfriend OLIVIER MARTINEZ cheated on her during t...
• Google 15 Years in the Future
The designer of the above photo is Jason. He created that picture under the screen name "modif...
• How important is content for SEO
When people create a website and start to optimize it for search engines like google (which may take...
• Windows Mobile 6-0 CamerAware Podcast interview
There are a lot of devices out there that use external bluetooth GPS or, as is becoming more com...
• How the Future Desktops Will Look Like - 360 Desktop
Ever wish your PC desktop was just a little bit bigger? Need more space for program shortcuts, d...
• European Inventor of the Year
IP experts from around the world are gathering in Munich this week to celebrate innovation and discu...
• Machowicz’s expertise with soldier craft and military hardware
Richard "Mack" Machowicz's expertise with soldier craft and military hardware comes from his experie...
• SXSW: Publishers, Where are You?
On a private mailing list for publishers, Peter Brantley pointed to Booksquare's open letter to publ...