RSS

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

For other uses, see RSS (disambiguation).
For RSS feeds from Wikipedia, see Wikipedia:Syndication.
RSS - Rich Site Summary
Feed Computer icon.
Filename extension
.rss, .xml
Internet media type
application/rss+xml (registration not finished)[1]
Type of format Web syndication
Extended from XML
User interface of a feed reader
RSS (Rich Site Summary); originally RDF Site Summary; often called Really Simple
Syndication, uses a family of standard web feed formats[2] to publish frequentl
y updated information: blog entries, news headlines, audio, video. An RSS docume
nt (called "feed", "web feed",[3] or "channel") includes full or summarized text
, and metadata, like publishing date and author's name.
RSS feeds enable publishers to syndicate data automatically. A standard XML file
format ensures compatibility with many different machines/programs. RSS feeds a
lso benefit users who want to receive timely updates from favourite websites or
to aggregate data from many sites.
Subscribing to a website RSS removes the need for the user to manually check the
website for new content. Instead, their browser constantly monitors the site an
d informs the user of any updates. The browser can also be commanded to automati
cally download the new data for the user.
Software termed "RSS reader", "aggregator", or "feed reader", which can be web-b
ased, desktop-based, or mobile-device-based, present RSS feed data to users. Use
rs subscribe to feeds either by entering a feed's URI into the reader or by clic
king on the browser's feed icon. The RSS reader checks the user's feeds regularl
y for new information and can automatically download it, if that function is ena
bled. The reader also provides a user interface.
Contents [hide]
1 History
2 Example
3 Variants
4 Modules
5 Interoperability
6 BitTorrent and RSS
7 RSS to email
8 RSS compared to Atom
9 Current Usage
10 See also
11 References
12 External links
History[edit]
Ambox current red.svg
This section is outdated. Please update this article to reflect recent events or
newly available information. (October 2013)
Main article: History of web syndication technology
The RSS formats were preceded by several attempts at web syndication that did no
t achieve widespread popularity. The basic idea of restructuring information abo
ut websites goes back to as early as 1995, when Ramanathan V. Guha and others in
Apple Computer's Advanced Technology Group developed the Meta Content Framework
.[4]

RDF Site Summary, the first version of RSS, was created by Dan Libby and Ramanat
han V. Guha at Netscape. It was released in March 1999 for use on the My.Netscap
e.Com portal. This version became known as RSS 0.9.[5] In July 1999, Dan Libby o
f Netscape produced a new version, RSS 0.91,[2] which simplified the format by r
emoving RDF elements and incorporating elements from Dave Winer's news syndicati
on format.[6] Libby also renamed the format from RDF to RSS Rich Site Summary an
d outlined further development of the format in a "futures document".[7]
This would be Netscape's last participation in RSS development for eight years.
As RSS was being embraced by web publishers who wanted their feeds to be used on
My.Netscape.Com and other early RSS portals, Netscape dropped RSS support from
My.Netscape.Com in April 2001 during new owner AOL's restructuring of the compan
y, also removing documentation and tools that supported the format.[8]
Two parties emerged to fill the void, with neither Netscape's help nor approval:
The RSS-DEV Working Group and Dave Winer, whose UserLand Software had published
some of the first publishing tools outside Netscape that could read and write R
SS.
Winer published a modified version of the RSS 0.91 specification on the UserLand
website, covering how it was being used in his company's products, and claimed
copyright to the document.[9] A few months later, UserLand filed a U.S. trademar
k registration for RSS, but failed to respond to a USPTO trademark examiner's re
quest and the request was rejected in December 2001.[10]
The RSS-DEV Working Group, a project whose members included Guha and representat
ives of O'Reilly Media and Moreover, produced RSS 1.0 in December 2000.[11] This
new version, which reclaimed the name RDF Site Summary from RSS 0.9, reintroduc
ed support for RDF and added XML namespaces support, adopting elements from stan
dard metadata vocabularies such as Dublin Core.
In December 2000, Winer released RSS 0.92[12] a minor set of changes aside from
the introduction of the enclosure element, which permitted audio files to be car
ried in RSS feeds and helped spark podcasting. He also released drafts of RSS 0.
93 and RSS 0.94 that were subsequently withdrawn.[13]
In September 2002, Winer released a major new version of the format, RSS 2.0, th
at redubbed its initials Really Simple Syndication. RSS 2.0 removed the type att
ribute added in the RSS 0.94 draft and added support for namespaces. To preserve
backward compatibility with RSS 0.92, namespace support applies only to other c
ontent included within an RSS 2.0 feed, not the RSS 2.0 elements themselves.[14]
(Although other standards such as Atom attempt to correct this limitation, RSS
feeds are not aggregated with other content often enough to shift the popularity
from RSS to other formats having full namespace support.)
Because neither Winer nor the RSS-DEV Working Group had Netscape's involvement,
they could not make an official claim on the RSS name or format. This has fueled
ongoing controversy in the syndication development community as to which entity
was the proper publisher of RSS.
One product of that contentious debate was the creation of an alternative syndic
ation format, Atom, that began in June 2003.[15] The Atom syndication format, wh
ose creation was in part motivated by a desire to get a clean start free of the
issues surrounding RSS, has been adopted as IETF Proposed Standard RFC 4287.
In July 2003, Winer and UserLand Software assigned the copyright of the RSS 2.0
specification to Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet & Society, where he had j
ust begun a term as a visiting fellow.[16] At the same time, Winer launched the
RSS Advisory Board with Brent Simmons and Jon Udell, a group whose purpose was t
o maintain and publish the specification and answer questions about the format.[

17]
In September 2004, Stephen Horlander created the now ubiquitous RSS icon (Feed-i
con.svg) for use in the Mozilla Firefox browser.[18]
In December 2005, the Microsoft Internet Explorer team[19] and Microsoft Outlook
team[20] announced on their blogs that they were adopting Firefox's RSS icon. I
n February 2006, Opera Software followed suit.[21] This effectively made the ora
nge square with white radio waves the industry standard for RSS and Atom feeds,
replacing the large variety of icons and text that had been used previously to i
dentify syndication data.
In January 2006, Rogers Cadenhead relaunched the RSS Advisory Board without Dave
Winer's participation, with a stated desire to continue the development of the
RSS format and resolve ambiguities. In June 2007, the board revised their versio
n of the specification to confirm that namespaces may extend core elements with
namespace attributes, as Microsoft has done in Internet Explorer 7. According to
their view, a difference of interpretation left publishers unsure of whether th
is was permitted or forbidden.
Example[edit]
RSS files are essentially XML formatted plain text. The RSS file itself is relat
ively easy to read both by automated processes and by humans alike. An example f
ile could have contents such as the following. This could be placed on any appro
priate communication protocol for file retrieval, such as http or ftp, and readi
ng software would use the information to present a neat display to the end users
.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
<rss version="2.0">
<channel>
<title>RSS Title</title>
<description>This is an example of an RSS feed</description>
<link>http://www.example.com/main.html</link>
<lastBuildDate>Mon, 06 Sep 2010 00:01:00 +0000 </lastBuildDate>
<pubDate>Sun, 06 Sep 2009 16:20:00 +0000</pubDate>
<ttl>1800</ttl>
<item>
<title>Example entry</title>
<description>Here is some text containing an interesting description.</descrip
tion>
<link>http://www.example.com/blog/post/1</link>
<guid isPermaLink="false">7bd204c6-1655-4c27-aeee-53f933c5395f</guid>
<pubDate>Sun, 06 Sep 2009 16:20:00 +0000</pubDate>
</item>
</channel>
</rss>
Variants[edit]
There are several different versions of RSS, falling into two major branches (RD
F and 2.*).
The RDF (or RSS 1.*) branch includes the following versions:
RSS 0.90 was the original Netscape RSS version. This RSS was called RDF Site Sum
mary, but was based on an early working draft of the RDF standard, and was not c
ompatible with the final RDF Recommendation.
RSS 1.0 is an open format by the RSS-DEV Working Group, again standing for RDF S
ite Summary. RSS 1.0 is an RDF format like RSS 0.90, but not fully compatible wi

th it, since 1.0 is based on the final RDF 1.0 Recommendation.

RSS 1.1 is also an open format and is intended to update and replace RSS 1.0. Th
e specification is an independent draft not supported or endorsed in any way by
the RSS-Dev Working Group or any other organization.
The RSS 2.* branch (initially UserLand, now Harvard) includes the following vers
ions:
RSS 0.91 is the simplified RSS version released by Netscape, and also the versio
n number of the simplified version originally championed by Dave Winer from User
land Software. The Netscape version was now called Rich Site Summary; this was n
o longer an RDF format, but was relatively easy to use.
RSS 0.92 through 0.94 are expansions of the RSS 0.91 format, which are mostly co
mpatible with each other and with Winer's version of RSS 0.91, but are not compa
tible with RSS 0.90.
RSS 2.0.1 has the internal version number 2.0. RSS 2.0.1 was proclaimed to be "f
rozen", but still updated shortly after release without changing the version num
ber. RSS now stood for Really Simple Syndication. The major change in this versi
on is an explicit extension mechanism using XML namespaces.[22]
Later versions in each branch are backward-compatible with earlier versions (asi
de from non-conformant RDF syntax in 0.90), and both versions include properly d
ocumented extension mechanisms using XML Namespaces, either directly (in the 2.*
branch) or through RDF (in the 1.* branch). Most syndication software supports
both branches. "The Myth of RSS Compatibility", an article written in 2004 by RS
S critic and Atom advocate Mark Pilgrim, discusses RSS version compatibility iss
ues in more detail.
The extension mechanisms make it possible for each branch to copy innovations in
the other. For example, the RSS 2.* branch was the first to support enclosures,
making it the current leading choice for podcasting, and as of 2005 is the form
at supported for that use by iTunes and other podcasting software; however, an e
nclosure extension is now available for the RSS 1.* branch, mod_enclosure. Likew
ise, the RSS 2.* core specification does not support providing full-text in addi
tion to a synopsis, but the RSS 1.* markup can be (and often is) used as an exte
nsion. There are also several common outside extension packages available, e.g.
one from Microsoft for use in Internet Explorer 7.
The most serious compatibility problem is with HTML markup. Userland's RSS reade
r generally considered as the reference implementation did not originally filter out
HTML markup from feeds. As a result, publishers began placing HTML markup into
the titles and descriptions of items in their RSS feeds. This behavior has becom
e expected of readers, to the point of becoming a de facto standard,[citation ne
eded] though there is still some inconsistency in how software handles this mark
up, particularly in titles. The RSS 2.0 specification was later updated to inclu
de examples of entity-encoded HTML; however, all prior plain text usages remain
valid.
As of January 2007, tracking data from www.syndic8.com indicates that the three
main versions of RSS in current use are 0.91, 1.0, and 2.0, constituting 13%, 17
%, and 67% of worldwide RSS usage, respectively.[23] These figures, however, do
not include usage of the rival web feed format Atom. As of August 2008, the synd
ic8.com website is indexing 546,069 total feeds, of which 86,496 (16%) were some
dialect of Atom and 438,102 were some dialect of RSS.[24]
Modules[edit]
The primary objective of all RSS modules is to extend the basic XML schema estab
lished for more robust syndication of content. This inherently allows for more d
iverse, yet standardized, transactions without modifying the core RSS specificat
ion.
To accomplish this extension, a tightly controlled vocabulary (in the RSS world,

"module"; in the XML world, "schema") is declared through an XML namespace to g

ive names to concepts and relationships between those concepts.
Some RSS 2.0 modules with established namespaces are:
Media RSS (MRSS) 2.0 Module
OpenSearch RSS 2.0 Module
Interoperability[edit]
Although the number of items in an RSS channel are theoretically not limited, so
me news aggregators do not support RSS files larger than 150KB. For example, app
lications that rely on the Common Feed List of Windows might handle such files a
s if they were corrupt, and not open them. Interoperability can be maximized by
keeping the file size under this limit.
BitTorrent and RSS[edit]
Some BitTorrent clients support RSS. RSS feeds which provide links to .torrent f
iles allow users to subscribe and automatically download content as soon as it i
s published.
RSS to email[edit]
See also: PubSubHubbub
Some services deliver rss to email inbox, sending updates from user's personal s
election and schedules.[25][26]
RSS compared to Atom[edit]
Both RSS and Atom are widely supported and are compatible with all major consume
r feed readers. RSS gained wider use because of early feed reader support. But,
technically, Atom is more advanced[27] and has several advantages: less restrict
ive licensing, IANA registered MIME type, XML namespace, URI support, Relax NG s
upport.[28]
The following table shows RSS elements alongside Atom elements where they are eq
uivalent. Note: the asterisk character (*) indicates that an element must be pro
vided except for Atom elements "author" and "link" which are only required under
certain conditions.
RSS 2.0 Atom 1.0
author author*
category
category
channel feed
copyright
rights
description
subtitle
description*
summary and/or content
generator
generator
guid
id*
image logo
item
entry
lastBuildDate (in channel)
updated*
link* link*
managingEditor author or contributor
pubDate published (subelement of entry)
title* title*
ttl
Current Usage[edit]
Although some widely used readers such as Shiira, FeedDemon, and Google Reader h
ave been discontinued having cited declining popularity, RSS remains a widely us
ed standard.[29] Even though Apple removed RSS support in OSX Mountain Lion's ve
rsions of Mail and Safari, RSS support was restored in OSX Yosemite's version of
Safari.[30][31] As of January 2015, other major browsers such as Mozilla Firefo
x and Internet Explorer include RSS support by default, with the notable excepti

on of Google Chrome. Additionally, popular reader services such as Feedly provid

e synchronization between desktop RSS readers and mobile devices.
See also[edit]
Comparison of feed aggregators
DataPortability
FeedSync previously Simple Sharing Extensions
Mashup (web application hybrid)
PubSubHubbub
References[edit]
Jump up ^ "The application/rss+xml Media Type". Network Working Group. May 22, 2
006. Retrieved 2007-08-16.
^ Jump up to: a b Libby, Dan (1999-07-10). "RSS 0.91 Spec, revision 3". Netscape
ttem. Archived from the original on 2000-12-04. Retrieved 2007-02-14.
Jump up ^ "Web feeds | RSS | The Guardian | guardian.co.uk", The Guardian, Londo
n, 2008, webpage: GuardianUK-webfeeds.
Jump up ^ Lash, Alex (1997-10-03). "W3C takes first step toward RDF spec". Archi
ved from the original on 2012-07-13. Retrieved 2007-02-16.
Jump up ^ "My Netscape Network: Quick Start". Netscape Communications. Archived
from the original on 2000-12-08. Retrieved 2006-10-31.
Jump up ^ RSS Advisory Board (June 7, 2007). "RSS History". Retrieved 2007-09-04
.
Jump up ^ "MNN Future Directions". Netscape Communications. Archived from the or
iginal on 2000-12-04. Retrieved 2006-10-31.
Jump up ^ Andrew King (2003-04-13). "The Evolution of RSS". Retrieved 2007-01-17
.
Jump up ^ Winer, Dave (2000-06-04). "RSS 0.91: Copyright and Disclaimer". UserLa
nd Software. Retrieved 2006-10-31.
Jump up ^ U.S. Patent & Trademark Office. "'RSS' Trademark Latest Status Info".
Jump up ^ RSS-DEV Working Group (2000-12-09). "RDF Site Summary (RSS) 1.0". Retr
ieved 2006-10-31.
Jump up ^ Winer, Dave (2000-12-25). "RSS 0.92 Specification". UserLand Software.
Retrieved 2006-10-31.
Jump up ^ Winer, Dave (2001-04-20). "RSS 0.93 Specification". UserLand Software.
Retrieved 2006-10-31.
Jump up ^ Harvard Law (2007-04-14). "Top-level namespaces". Retrieved 2009-08-03
.
Jump up ^ Festa, Paul (2003-08-04). "Dispute exposes bitter power struggle behin
d Web logs". news.cnet.com. Retrieved 2008-08-06. The conflict centers on someth
ing called Really Simple Syndication (RSS), a technology widely used to syndicat
e blogs and other Web content. The dispute pits Harvard Law School fellow Dave W
iner, the blogging pioneer who is the key gatekeeper of RSS, against advocates o
f a different format.
Jump up ^ "Advisory Board Notes". RSS Advisory Board. 2003-07-18. Retrieved 2007
-09-04.
Jump up ^ "RSS 2.0 News". Dave Winer. Retrieved 2007-09-04.
Jump up ^ "2004-09-26 Branch builds". Retrieved 6 October 2014.
Jump up ^ Icons: It s still orange, Microsoft RSS Blog, December 14, 2005
Jump up ^ RSS icon goodness, blog post by Michael A. Affronti of Microsoft (Outl
ook Program Manager), December 15, 2005
Jump up ^ "Making love to the new feed icon". Opera Desktop Team. 2006-02-16. Re
trieved 2010-07-04.
Jump up ^ "Namespaces in XML 1.0" (2nd ed.). W3C. August 16, 2006.
Jump up ^ Holzner, Steven. "Peachpit article". Peachpit article. Retrieved 201012-11.
Jump up ^ "Syndic8 stats table". Syndic8.com. Retrieved 2011-08-12.
Jump up ^ https://blogtrottr.com/about/
Jump up ^ https://blogtrottr.com/
Jump up ^ Sikos, Leslie. "RSS tutorial".
Jump up ^ Sikos, Leslie (2011). Web standards - Mastering HTML5, CSS3, and XML.

Apress. ISBN 978-1-4302-4041-9.

Jump up ^ Hlzle, Urs. "A second spring of cleaning". googleblog.blogspot.com. Ret
rieved March 14, 2013.
Jump up ^ Frakes, Dan (February 19, 2012). "Mountain Lion: Hands on with Mail".
Macworld. Mac Publishing. Retrieved February 23, 2012.
Jump up ^ "Subscribe to RSS Feeds in Safari for OS X Yosemite". OSX Daily. Retri
eved January 24, 2015.
External links[edit]
Wikimedia Commons has media related to RSS.
RSS 0.90 Specification
RSS 0.91 Specification
RSS 1.0 Specifications
RSS 2.0 Specification
History of the RSS Fork (Mark Pilgrim)
Building an RSS feed Tutorial with example
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Web syndication
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News aggregators
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Data exchange formats
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AMF Base32 Base36 Base64
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