RSS Syndication

Prior to taking PR 629 Converged Technologies, some of my classmates knew what RSS Syndications is.  I, on the other hand did not.  Here is my attempt to explain what RSS Syndication is exactly and break it down into “dummy” words, in an effort to help my classmates and myself remember this term and be able to effectively explain it to anyone who may ask us for a definition.

In short, RSS or Really Simple Syndication is a group of web feed formats used to publish frequently updated works such as blog entries, news headlines, audio, and video—in a standardized format

If you go to Weblogs, a.k.a. blogs, you've seen the little XML icons "" inviting you to "syndicate this site," but what does that really mean? Many moons ago, newspaper managers realized that if they could use articles and stories from other newspapers in their paper, they could secure more readers because they could cover a wider area than with just their own reporters. This is an example of how syndication can work in print.

Online, there are millions of authors writing about millions of topics each day. It is very difficult to keep track without some type of automated system. And that's where RSS comes in. RSS is an easy way for Web sites to share headlines and stories from other sites.

This is an iconic tool for public relations strategy as it helps to spread the word and create awareness for the person, product, or organization you are trying to get publicity for in an effective, efficient, and easy way. 

According to Wikipedia, the RSS tool was originated by by Netscape, when they were trying to get into the portal business. They wanted a format that would be easy for them to get news and information from other sites and have them automatically added to their site. They then came out with RSS .91 and dropped it when they decided to get out of the portal business.

UserLand Software picked up RSS .91 and continued to develop it, coming out with several other versions. At the same time as UserLand, a non-commercial group picked up RSS and developed RSS 1.0 based on their interpretation of the original principles of RSS. They based RSS 1.0 on RDF and re-named it RDF Site Summary. UserLand was not happy with RSS 1.0, and continued development of their version of RSS (Really Simple Syndication), eventually releasing RSS 2.0.