What is RSS?

RSS stands for "Really Simple Syndication."

This is a special format for delivering and gathering content (RSS feeds) from websites such as CNN, MSN, ESPN, blogs, etc. A rather nice and entertaining introduction to RSS can be found at http://www.commoncraft.com/rss_plain_english. (Note, when viewing this from within D211, be sure to have YouTube already open or the video will not play. This may be due to websense filtering.)


Aggregators

Aggregators are web sites that you use to receive the RSS feeds. iGoogle, Google Reader, Netvibes, Bloglines, Newsgator, and PageFlakes are just a few of the many aggregators that allow you to put all of your RSS feeds in one place. In effect, the web comes to you, you don't go to it.

Below is the News Element from Google.




Here is another example of a feed one might see if an aggregator is setup to receive news from Yahoo (this is a live feed!):

Please see http://il-tce2008.wikispaces.com/RSS for a wiki summary on an RSS workshop presented at the ICE Conference in February of 2008.