The Simpler the Better

KINGSTON, Penn. - People everywhere want to be able to access stories from their favorite websites at the click of a button. RSS Feeds (Rich Site Summary), a format for delivering regularly changing web content, allows people to stay easily informed by retrieving the latest content from the sites of interest. You save time by not needing to visit each site individually.

RSS Feeds were developed in March 1999 by Netscape. Their purpose is to summarize news from websites that are regularly updated. Often, web logs, news-related sites, and other online publishers have their content as an RSS Feed for people who are interested in accessing news from that site at any time. According to Connor Scalleat, Editor and Site Engineer of T3CH H3LP, he believes that "RSS posts really revolutionize the way we can connect and obtain our media. With RSS readers serving our content in extremely dynamic and interactive ways, it changes the way we think of internet media. They allow me to instead of visiting 7 sites to find articles I want, I just need to open one reader to get article summaries, comments, sharing options, and much much more."

Netscape, the founder of the RSS feeds, developed the system because they "wanted to use an XML Extensible Markup Language [XML] format to distribute news, stories and information." The first successful version of RSS feeds was developed on March 15, 1999, and then the second worthy update was published on Aug. 14, 2000.

RSS Feeds are most commonly used by numerous types of news organizations, such as The New York Times and CNN. Mrs. Courtney Lewis, head librarian at Wyoming Seminary Upper School, uses RSS feeds to subscribe to over 300 blogs in different categories such as specific authors, major organizations in her profession, blogs of fellow faculty members, technology, and other blogs that are relevant to her hobbies. She states that using RSS feeds allows her to access things that are of interest more openly and easily, and is able to better organize and manage information that is important to her.

RSS feeds are used with readers, such as Google Reader. The program will grab articles from websites of your interest that are relevant to your passions. The simpler really is the better.