Why rss feeds are used

That stripped-down content gets plugged into a feed reader, an interface that quickly converts the RSS text files into a stream of the latest updates from around the web. As internet content became more complex, so did RSS files, quickly adopting images, video, and more, but still in a stripped-down format for more effortless loading and compatibility across all feed readers.

Readers usually automatically update to deliver the newest content right to your device. This approach allows internet users to create their online feeds filled with custom updates from the sites they regularly visit. Yes and no.

Social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and others have become the go-to option for following sites, watching feeds, and learning about the latest content. Other online options such as Google News aggregate full links to the latest stories, with algorithms to pick out stories you may like. Interest in RSS feeds has gone down over the past several years. Online brands already have to post to social media for their marketing goals, and they may not want to take the extra time to convert content into a bunch of RSS files.

This added effort is why a new blog or website may only offer subscription content by following them on social media, but no RSS feed. Gillmor told his readers that it was time to let RSS recede into the background. Today, RSS is not dead.

But neither is it anywhere near as popular as it once was. Lots of people have offered explanations for why RSS lost its broad appeal. Perhaps the most persuasive explanation is exactly the one offered by Gillmor in Social networks, just like RSS, provide a feed featuring all the latest news on the internet.

Social networks took over from RSS because they were simply better feeds. They also provide more benefits to the companies that own them. Marco Arment, the creator of Instapaper, wrote on his blog in :. Google Reader is just the latest casualty of the war that Facebook started, seemingly accidentally: the battle to own everything.

So both users and technology companies realized that they got more out of using social networks than they did out of RSS. Another theory is that RSS was always too geeky for regular people.

The label was perfectly accurate though, because back then clicking the link would take a hapless user to a page full of XML. RSS might have been able to overcome some of these limitations if it had been further developed. Maybe RSS could have been extended somehow so that friends subscribed to the same channel could syndicate their thoughts about an article to each other.

Maybe browser support could have been improved. When they failed to agree on a single standard, effort that could have gone into improving RSS was instead squandered on duplicating work that had already been done. If we ask ourselves why social networks were able to supplant it, then the answer may be that the people trying to make RSS succeed faced a problem much harder than, say, building Facebook.

So today we are left with centralized silos of information. Even so, the syndicated web that Werbach foresaw in has been realized, just not in the way he thought it would be.

After all, The Onion is a publication that relies on syndication through Facebook and Twitter the same way that Seinfeld relied on syndication to rake in millions after the end of its original run.

I asked Werbach what he thinks about this and he more or less agrees. But the more mundane reason is that centralized silos are just easier to design than common standards. Consensus is difficult to achieve and it takes time, but without consensus spurned developers will go off and create competing standards. The lesson here may be that if we want to see a better, more open web, we have to get better at working together.

Sinclair writes about the history of computing on his blog, Two-Bit History. Follow TwoBitHistory on Twitter for his latest posts. Sign In Create Account. Image: Cathryn Virginia. Before the internet was consolidated into centralized information silos, RSS imagined a better way to let users control their online personas. Your favorite website or podcast creates an RSS feed that maintains a list of fresh content.

Learn how to check this list or use a feed reader to check here. Get started free. What is RSS? What Does the Information Look Like? So how does this really work? An aggregator is responsible for the convenience of RSS feeds. Related Resources. How to add your podcast RSS feed to Spotify. How to add your podcast RSS feed to Stitcher. How to submit your show to TuneIn. How to get your podcast published on iHeartRadio. How to get your podcast on Pandora. It also works with third-party apps.

Getting started with Feedly is easy. To subscribe to an RSS feed in Feedly on a desktop:. Select Follow. Select New Feed. Enter a descriptive name for the feed. Select Create. In the left pane, select the RSS feed. Select the content you want to read. To save the content to read later, hover over the bookmark icon Read Later or the star Save to Board. It was used by web publishers to display their website content on My. A few months later, Netscape simplified the technology and renamed it to Rich Site Summary.

Actively scan device characteristics for identification. Use precise geolocation data. Select personalised content. Create a personalised content profile. Measure ad performance. Select basic ads. Create a personalised ads profile.