Have you ever heard of the term RSS? Surely yes, and you are not the only one; the truth is that many people have heard it but do not know exactly whatWhat is RSS?, in this article we will tell you everything about this curious term for information.
Introduction to RSS
This type of computer format has been around for years on the web; it is common that many people have seen and heard it, but do not know exactly what is RSS. The truth is that this format was previously not widely used (mainly by web pages); even more so, with the appearance of Google Reader, which the former took a backseat.
However, since the fall of Google Reader to the present, this format began to emerge from the depths and is even beginning to be used more than it was before.
For this reason, we will talk about what it is and much more about it; since as it is beginning to sound so much again, we believe it is important that Internet users learn more about it, about the RSS.
What is RSS?
The acronym for RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication, which translates into Spanish as «Really Simple Syndication»; with respect to the word "Syndication", this refers to a group of companies of several newspapers. That said, you can get an idea then of what RSS is all about.
Basically, RSS is a type of technology that is responsible for providing information to the user in an easy and simple way; what is commonly known by the term feed, widely used on Instagram for example.
This technology is compared to Atom, which is another very similar technology that fulfills the same functions as the first; provide us (the user) with new content. And in terms of functions and appearances, both are quite similar; so much so, that ordinary people, who do not know much about computers, will not notice the difference between one technology and the other; Despite this, RSS became more widely used than Atom.
How It Works
This technological format has an .xml extension; which is a type of computer language, for the web, as well as HTML, CSS, and so on. In the case of RSS, the information is encoded using this language, which makes it possible for any software, such as programs and applications; can read them without any problem and that can be displayed, in the most convenient way possible.
Many of today's programs make use of this technology to be able to display their content and that they are automatically updated when we make any changes to it.
One of the best known platforms, which makes use of this type of computer language, is WordPress; placing ourselves in this situation: if we have a certain number of posts, every time we update by placing a new one; the RSS will automatically remove the oldest and scroll the others "down" to make room for the newest; in this way, the same number of posts is preserved within the WordPress platform. Of course, this is so, if we have the default configuration, since we can also accommodate this section, according to our needs.
By itself, this technology can work perfectly and our browser will be able to read it without any problem; however, it will not be very useful, since in order to use the full potential of this software, a platform, a program that can make use of its services, is necessary; otherwise, the only thing we will see in our browser would be pure code language. They are the so-called “feed readers”, who will be in charge of “translating” this language, so that we can see and read it comfortably.
If you want to know more about websites, their advantages and why it is important to have one; then we recommend that you visit the following article: Advantages of a website.
What is RSS for?
Although we had said that this software is mainly used for viewing news and information in a comfortable way; Actually, it can be used for other types of functions, but internally in some website, more specifically, its "meta operation". Despite this, we will deal in more detail with the main use of RSS.
This technological format is mainly used for the transmission of information; its operation will depend a lot on what services you are using and how you will use them. In case you are a web page developer, then you must be very clear about what you want to use an RSS for.
The feed that uses this technological format, and that of Atom as well; It basically serves to display information and news from a foreign website to another; either partially or totally. Bearing this in mind, then you already know what the basic operation of this type of format is.
Although it may seem simple, RSS stood out from other feeds as the best method to display news on a wide variety of web pages and platforms, from one place. It was due to this that this format became so popular and well-known; also for its characteristic orange icon, which it is very likely that you know and do not know that it is RSS.
Some examples of feeds
Throughout our internet browsing, it is certain that we were able to come across many types of feeds, on various internet pages and platforms. Online newspapers, for example, where their feeds display article headlines.
In the case of internet pages responsible for the sale and purchase of items, whose feeds contain information on the availability and price of an item; in addition to informing you when this content has been updated.
In the case of blogs and/or Internet forums, it is in charge of informing users of titles of new topics that have been added; also, it is in charge of the notification of the comments responses and finally, we can also subscribe to a specific article of a blog through the same feed, to be aware of all the updates of that entry and its comments.
Perhaps the most common examples of an RSS feed are through the use of the WordPress platforms (although any website developer can do this); is the feed embedding of social networks like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter; in this case, the feeds will help you to enter directly to the official pages of these pages. Also, through these same feeds, connected to the networks, any update will appear reflected in them.
In this case, we see the feed reflected, in the Facebook embed, in the center of the page.
Another use of the feed is in Torrent programs (or download managers), where they are used to perform automatic downloads; as long as the file is available.
How do the feeds work?
Something that we had said before is that the feeds are an important part in the operation ofI RSS; In addition, we gave you some examples of how the feeds are presented, within the same RSS. Since everything works together and is related, it is also important that you know a little about how these web channels, also known as “web sources”, work.
Regardless of how these sources are used, initially, the operation will be basically the same for everyone; what differentiates them from others are the elements that constitute them, thus a more elaborate feed will logically have more elements than a simple one. It is for this reason, what we had said before; that we can select one or the other, depending on our tastes and needs.
The feeds can be used either online or locally (offline or connected through a local network, with or without internet access). But the preferable thing is that they have an internet connection, so that we can access their content from anywhere, without any problem.
How can you add an RSS feed?
To do this, simply add the URL address of our chosen feed, in the box that is intended for this purpose. Although we can also add the web address of the publication directly; but the latter will work if the “feed reader” or “feed aggregator” can recognize it automatically, otherwise the first method would have to be done. In case you're wondering, there's no limit to feed aggregation.
As RSS feeds are quite "customizable" to the editor's taste, we can organize them (the feeds) according to our preferences, so we can consult them later, if we wish. We may mark and label our feeds, to identify them; this will obviously give us greater control over their content, which will allow us to better organize and classify them.
Advantages about using RSS in feeds
Now what do you knowWhat is RSS?, How does it work and what was the operation of the feeds in specific?; We can talk about some of the advantages of using RSS, over other existing formats, which although they are a good option; they do not perform as well as RSS. Next, the main advantages that are the following:
- If we use RSS to add a feed, any update to a post; the format of the feed, it will update it automatically. This happens because RSS is responsible for periodically analyzing all the sources present; in case it finds any update in it, the format will update the feed by itself and the content that it will show us will have the changes made.
- We will have a count of all the new articles that are added and will discount those that we have previously opened; In this way, we will have a count and an organization of the articles, which ones we saw, which ones are new and so on.
- We already mentioned this point in the previous section; Due to the various customization options that RSS allows, we will have more control over the feed; for a more optimal and efficient organization and classification.
- The sources of content, we can select them personally, so there will be no selection of content by third parties; regardless if the font is little known or is very popular among the internet community.
- Because the content is displayed directly and automatically, it saves us considerable time viewing it; plus we can do it from one place, no matter how many posts there are.
- The content is made easier and simpler to view, since it presents them in a “uniform” way; although this can also be a double-edged sword, since due to this visualization, the design of some of them cannot be fully enjoyed.
Finally, it should be noted that the use of RSS is quite easy and simple, which means that it will be very accessible to the vast majority of people who wish to enter this world. Of course, this does not mean that it does not deserve a few hours to be able to investigate well about its operation; something that we strongly recommend you do, if you want to take advantage of all the potential available to this type of format; truth be told, it is worth investing some of our time to learn how to use it.
How to take advantage of RSS?
As RSS is just emerging, due to what we had already told you at the beginning; There will not be many tools for its use, but despite this, it does not mean that it is totally useless to us, at all. Still, we can get a lot of use out of this great format, if we know how to use it.
In this section, we will tell you about a few tools that you can use, to get the most out of RSS; which are the following:
- Feed readers: We have mentioned this before, with all the sense in the world it has to appear here, as they will be the main tools needed to get RSS up and running; although the readers, it is not that they have not had much development, we can find some very good and quite complete ones.
We recommend that you use those that have both a desktop web version and a mobile version; since today, it is very common for people to access the internet through their own smartphone; and the truth is that it is quite uncomfortable to visit web pages that do not have the “Responsive Design”, to accommodate the site according to the device used to visit it. - Thematic feeds that interest us: more than a tool, it is a recommendation to take advantage of it; In this case, we advise you to search for sites that are of interest to you, however, the search does not end there, since you must find out if they have a feed; the latter, can facilitate your work considerably.
- Instant RSS Research: this tool will do the reverse process of the previous point; that is, instead of looking for websites of our interest and that these have feeds available; With this search engine, through our feed, other feeds will be searched, excuse the redundancy, based on the content of the first one. In this way, we can then fill our reader with many resources and utilities.
- RSS generators: in the event that some of the sites we have visited do not have RSS, there is nothing to worry about, since various generators can be found on the web; to make this job easier for us.
A good recommendation would be Page2RSS; which will create an extension in our browser (exclusively for Chrome) that will notify us if the site we visit has RSS or not; if not, we just generate it.
It should be noted that it is not possible to generate RSS for all sites, so in this sense, it is a matter of luck; Other useful tools for this job are Feed43 and FeedYes. You can try the three options that we mentioned in this article if any of them did not give you positive results. - The mail as a receiver of feeds: with the use of platforms such as Blogtrottr and FeedMyInbox; we will receive updates of our content, directly to an email address; this is used as a substitute for a feed reader, rather than employing it directly.
Social networks
As a last point, the RSS y the feeds; they have been used primarily for social media embedding, as exemplified above. With RSS, we can create a feed that keeps us always up to date with updates from our main social networks, such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
Many pages do not usually use this type of service for this task; however, others do use them, either visually, or in a more "hidden" way; This will be up to you if you want to use RSS, for your social networks or not. To finish, we will leave you an informative video with more information about it and in detail.