Replies

I think you dropped a closing parenthesis on that link. Try http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSS_(file_format).

However, I find most articles, such as that Wikipedia article, have difficulty explaining RSS. RSS is an underlying protocol, rather (vaguely) like HTML. One would not expect to explain to your grandmother what browsing the web was like by giving them a link to a page defining the HTML protocol and history in precise technical detail. It just isn't going to help them.

What matters is how you use it and see it.

For example, in my Firefox browser, I have a number of Bookmarks that I depend on heavily. Over a thousand bookmarks, actually. They are arranged in folders, with various subjects, such as Politics, Nutrition, Computers, and what not.

Now where RSS comes into play is this way. Some of those Folders are dynamically updated. Such as I now (as of earlier today) have a bookmark folder that I call "FR Latest". It has links to the Latest Articles. It is updated automatically and instantaneously, to whatever are the Latest Articles. I can glance at that folder of my Bookmarks, regardless of what web site I happen to be on, and if I see the title of an FR Article of interest, go directly to that Article, with one click on the bookmark.

So, for me, RSS means the ability to have a list of dynamically updated bookmarks for lists of posts or articles or updates to a web site, if the web site is publishing those updates using RSS.