R to the SS

A relatively new technology called Really Simple Syndication (RSS) is a great way to stay up to date on the latest news and blog updates. With a simple aggregation tool or content manager, your inbox can be transformed into a news casting machine, receiving as many “feeds” as you’re subscribed to. Most users are not aware that their personalized start pages are consumed with RSS technology. According to online surveys, 88% of people online are unaware of RSS.

RSS collects Metadata from the XML source and extracts it to a feed. The feed is processed by the content aggregator to keep everything in order. Google Reader is a popular web based RSS reader. I use a custom Google start page, with an RSS feed compiled with technology news. I also use RSS in my Microsoft Exchange email. Though not as popular now, the button you see above used to be easily found on the address bar in Internet Explorer or Firefox.

The history of RSS is somewhat multicolored tainted with folklore. Some say RSS can be traced back to 1997 and the creation of Resource Description Framework (RDF). RDF stores Metadata, which is information about information. For example, Meta for a news article would be the information associated with the report, i.e. the author, copyright information and language. In 1999 Netscape created a standard named RSS 0.90. Netscape employee Dan Libby improved version 0.90 and deployed version 0.91. Here’s where the confusion starts. Dave Winer of Userland also created an updated version, again naming it RSS version 0.91. The names were the same, but the specifications were slightly different.

Netscape decided to abandon RSS, and O’Reily took over publishing RSS 1.0. RSS 1.0 isn’t compatible with previous version of RSS, because it’s based off the original RDF framework. This caused mass market confusion. Userland decided to mitigate the confusion by creating yet another standard, RSS v 2.0. Dave Winer sold Harvard Law the idea that competitors were leery of using a standard he had a hand in creating. They took responsibility for the future development of RSS.