What is an RSS feed

Put simply RSS is a format for easily sharing content on the web. What type of content? Commonly things such as news items, job adverts, or marketing communications are ideal candidates for RSS although almost any list orientated information can be suitable.

Fundamentals

Some key points to be aware of from the outset include:

The terms Syndication and Aggregation are often used in the context of RSS. Dictionary definitions of 'syndication' are along the following lines:

'Distributing' a news article or picture through a syndicate for publication in a number of newspapers or periodicals simultaneously.
'Syndication' is often used in the context of RSS because it is all about distributing content for reuse.

Because RSS is an XML format and not simple HTML, RSS files must be processed (or 'parsed') before they can be displayed. On web sites they are often visualized as links to the RSS file resource with a small orange icon named XML or RSS: .
In the firefox web browser they are named live bookmarks while IE7 uses so called webfeeds and visualized with this icon: . RSS aggregators like Rss Bandit are applications which provide the means to read the content of RSS files.

An RSS aggregator is a program that reads RSS documents and displays new items. Most aggregators make it possible to subscribe to a feed by simply entering the URL to the RSS document. See also Subscribing to a feed.

Other types of applications can also take advantage of RSS to syndicate content. For example, most of the major news sites including Wired, CNet, Yahoo!, and NPR News provide RSS feeds. Check out Blogdigger and Syndic8 or use build in facilities to find sites that support RSS.

  Also our project hosted at sourceforge.net provides RSS feeds to syndicate news related to RSS Bandit project. This is a great way to keep up with news and release downloads.