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Data format
"News feed" redirects here. For the Facebook feature, see
News Feed
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Common web feed icon
On the
World Wide Web
, a
web feed
(or
news feed
) is a data format used for providing users with frequently updated content. Content distributors
syndicate
a web feed, thereby allowing users to
a channel to it by adding the feed resource address to a
news aggregator
client (also called a
feed reader
or a
news reader
). Users typically subscribe to a feed by manually entering the
URL
of a feed or clicking a link in a
web browser
or by dragging the link from the web browser to the aggregator, thus "RSS and Atom files provide news updates from a website in a simple form for your computer."
The kinds of content delivered by a web feed are typically
HTML
(webpage content) or links to webpages and other kinds of digital media. Often, when websites provide web feeds to notify users of content updates, they only include summaries in the web feed rather than the full content itself. Many news
websites
weblogs
, schools and
podcasters
operate web feeds. As web feeds are designed to be
machine-readable
rather than
human-readable
they can also be used to automatically transfer information from one website to another without any human intervention.
Technical definition
edit
A web feed is a
document
(often
XML
-based) whose discrete content items include web links to the source of the content. News websites and blogs are common sources for web feeds, but feeds are also used to deliver structured information ranging from weather data to
results.
Common web feed formats are:
RSS
(1999–2009)
Atom
(2005–2007)
JSON Feed
(2017–2020)
Although RSS formats have evolved since March 1999,
the RSS icon ("
") first gained widespread use between 2005 and 2006.
The feed icon indicates that a web feed is available.
The original icon was created by Stephen Horlander, a designer at
Mozilla
With the prevalence of
JSON
in
Web APIs
, a further format,
JSON Feed
, was defined in 2017.
citation needed
History
edit
Dave Winer
published a modified version of the RSS 0.91 specification on the
UserLand
website, covering how it was being used in his company's products and claimed copyright to the document.
A few months later, UserLand filed a U.S. trademark registration for RSS, but failed to respond to a
USPTO
trademark examiner's request and the request was rejected in December 2001.
The
RSS-DEV Working Group
, a project whose members included Guha and representatives of
O'Reilly Media
and Moreover, produced RSS 1.0 in December 2000.
This new version, which reclaimed the name RDF Site Summary from RSS 0.9, reintroduced support for RDF and added
XML namespaces
support, adopting elements from standard metadata vocabularies such as
Dublin Core
In December 2000, Winer released RSS 0.92
a minor set of changes aside from the introduction of the enclosure element, which permitted audio files to be carried in RSS feeds and helped spark
podcasting
. He also released drafts of RSS 0.93 and RSS 0.94 that were subsequently withdrawn.
In September 2002, Winer released a major new version of the format, RSS 2.0, that redubbed its initials Really Simple Syndication. RSS 2.0 removed the
type
attribute added in the RSS 0.94 draft and added support for namespaces.
Because neither Winer nor the RSS-DEV Working Group had Netscape's involvement, they could not make an official claim on the RSS name or format. This has fueled ongoing controversy in the syndication development community as to which entity was the proper publisher of RSS.
One product of that contentious debate was the creation of an alternative syndication format, Atom, that began in June 2003.
The Atom syndication format, whose creation was in part motivated by a desire to get a clean start free of the issues surrounding RSS, has been adopted as
RFC
4287
In July 2003, Winer and UserLand Software assigned the copyright of the RSS 2.0 specification to Harvard's
Berkman Center for Internet & Society
, where he had just begun a term as a visiting fellow.
10
At the same time, Winer launched the
RSS Advisory Board
with
Brent Simmons
and
Jon Udell
, a group whose purpose was to maintain and publish the specification and answer questions about the format.
11
In December 2005, the Microsoft Internet Explorer team
and
Outlook team
12
announced on their blogs that they were adopting the feed icon first used in the Mozilla
Firefox
browser
, created by Stephen Horlander, a Mozilla Designer. A few months later,
Opera Software
followed suit. This effectively made the orange square with white radio waves the industry standard for RSS and Atom feeds, replacing the large variety of icons and text that had been used previously to identify syndication data.
In January 2006,
Rogers Cadenhead
relaunched the RSS Advisory Board without Dave Winer's participation, with a stated desire to continue the development of the RSS format and resolve ambiguities. In June 2007, the board revised their version of the specification to confirm that namespaces may extend core elements with namespace attributes, as Microsoft has done in Internet Explorer 7. According to their view, a difference of interpretation left publishers unsure of whether this was permitted or forbidden.
Comparison to email subscriptions
edit
Web feeds have some advantages compared to receiving frequently published content via an email:
Users do not disclose their email address when subscribing to a feed and so are not increasing their exposure to threats associated with email: spam, viruses,
phishing
and
identity theft
Users do not have to send an unsubscribe request to stop receiving news. They simply remove the feed from their aggregator.
The feed items are automatically sorted in that each feed URL has its own sets of entries (unlike an email box where messages must be sorted by user-defined rules and pattern matching).
RSS compared with Atom
edit
Both RSS and
Atom
are widely supported and are compatible with all major consumer feed readers. RSS gained wider use because of early feed reader support. Technically, Atom has several advantages: less restrictive licensing,
IANA
-registered
MIME type
, XML namespace,
URI
support,
RELAX NG
support.
13
The following table shows RSS elements alongside Atom elements where they are equivalent.
Note: the
asterisk
character (*) indicates that an element must be provided (Atom elements "author" and "link" are only required under certain conditions).
RSS 2.0
Atom 1.0
author
author
category
category
channel
feed
rights
subtitle
description
summary
or
content
generator
generator
guid
id
image
logo
item
entry
lastBuildDate
(in
channel
updated
link
link
managingEditor
author
or
contributor
pubDate
published
(subelement of
entry
title
title
ttl
See also
edit
See
Wikipedia:Syndication
on how various aspects of Wikipedia can be monitored with RSS or Atom feeds.
Web syndication
feed: URI scheme
Share icon
OPML
Podcast
Feed reader
WebSub
JSON Feed
References
edit
Blogspace "RSS readers (RSS info)"
"My Netscape Network: Quick Start"
Netscape Communications
. Archived from
the original
on December 8, 2000
. Retrieved
October 31,
2006
Jane (December 14, 2005).
"Icons: It's still orange"
. Microsoft RSS Blog. Archived from
the original
on November 6, 2008
. Retrieved
November 9,
2008
Winer, Dave (June 4, 2000).
"RSS 0.91: Copyright and Disclaimer"
UserLand Software
. Retrieved
October 31,
2006
U.S. Patent & Trademark Office.
'RSS' Trademark Latest Status Info"
RSS-DEV Working Group (December 9, 2000).
"RDF Site Summary (RSS) 1.0"
. Retrieved
October 31,
2006
Winer, Dave (December 25, 2000).
"RSS 0.92 Specification"
UserLand Software
. Archived from
the original
on January 31, 2011
. Retrieved
October 31,
2006
Winer, Dave (April 20, 2001).
"RSS 0.93 Specification"
UserLand Software
. Retrieved
October 31,
2006
Festa, Paul (August 4, 2003).
"Dispute exposes bitter power struggle behind Web logs"
. news.cnet.com
. Retrieved
August 6,
2008
The conflict centers on something called Really Simple Syndication (RSS), a technology widely used to syndicate blogs and other Web content. The dispute pits Harvard Law School fellow Dave Winer, the blogging pioneer who is the key gatekeeper of RSS, against advocates of a different format.
"Advisory Board Notes"
RSS Advisory Board
. July 18, 2003
. Retrieved
September 4,
2007
"RSS 2.0 News"
Dave Winer
. Retrieved
September 4,
2007
RSS icon goodness
, blog post by Michael A. Affronti of Microsoft (Outlook Program Manager), December 15, 2005
Leslie Sikos (2011).
Web standards – Mastering HTML5, CSS3, and XML
Apress
ISBN
978-1-4302-4041-9
. Archived from
the original
on April 2, 2015
. Retrieved
June 14,
2022
External links
edit
Wikimedia Commons has media related to
Feed icons
Pilgrim, Mark (December 18, 2002).
"What is RSS?"
Shea, Dave (May 19, 2004).
"What is RSS/XML/Atom/Syndication?"
. Archived from
the original
on November 2, 2010
. Retrieved
February 16,
2006
Web syndication
History
Blogging
Podcasting
Vlogging
Web syndication technology
Types
Art
Bloggernacle
Classical music
Corporate
Dream diary
Edublog
Electronic journal
Fake
Family
Fashion
Food
Health
Law
Lifelog
MP3
News
Photoblog
Police
Political
Project
Reverse
Travel
Warblog
Technology
General
BitTorrent
Feed URI scheme
Features
Linkback
Permalink
Ping
Pingback
Reblogging
Refback
Rollback
Trackback
Mechanism
Thread
Geotagging
RSS enclosure
Synchronization
Memetics
Atom feed
Data feed
Photofeed
Product feed
RDF feed
Web feed
RSS
GeoRSS
MRSS
RSS TV
Social
Inter-process communication
Mashup
Referencing
RSS editor
RSS tracking
Streaming media
Standard
OPML
RSS Advisory Board
Usenet
World Wide Web
XBEL
XOXO
Form
Audio podcast
Enhanced podcast
Mobilecast
Narrowcasting
Peercasting
Screencast
Slidecasting
Videocast
Webcomic
Webtoon
Web series
Anonymous blogging
Collaborative blog
Columnist
Instant messaging
Liveblogging
Microblog
Mobile blogging
Spam blog
Video blogging
Motovlogging
Media
Alternative media
Carnivals
Fiction
Journalism
Citizen
Database
Online diary
Search engines
Sideblog
Software
Web directory
Micromedia
Aggregation
News
Poll
Review
Video
Atom
AtomPub
Broadcatching
Hashtag
NewsML
G2
Social communication
Social software
Web Slice
Related
Blogosphere
Escribitionist
Glossary of blogging
Pay per click
Posting style
Slashdot effect
Spam in blogs
Uses of podcasting
Content aggregators
Client
software
Standalone
Akregator
BlogBridge
Feedreader
Flipboard
Genieo
Google Currents
Google News
Liferea
NetNewsWire
Newsbeuter
NewsFire
QuiteRSS
RSS Bandit
RSS Guard
RSSOwl
Seesmic
Web browsers
AOL Explorer
Basilisk
Camino
iCab
Chrome (Android)
Firefox
Flock
GNOME Web
Internet Explorer
K-Meleon
Kazehakase
Maxthon
Microsoft Edge
Netscape Browser
Netscape Navigator 9
OmniWeb
Opera
Otter Browser
Pale Moon
Safari
SeaMonkey
Shiira
Sleipnir
Tencent Traveler
Vivaldi
Waterfox
Email clients
Apple Mail
Claws Mail
Gnus
HCL Domino
Microsoft Outlook
Mozilla Thunderbird
Netscape Messenger 9
Pegasus Mail
The Bat!
Windows Live Mail
Zimbra
Plugins
Cooliris
Web apps
or
mobile apps
Bloglines
CommaFeed
Daylife
Digg Reader
Drupal
Feedbin
Feedly
FriendFeed
Google News
Google Reader
iGoogle
dotCMS
Imooty.eu
Inoreader
LinkedIn Pulse
Magnolia
My Yahoo!
News360
NewsBlur
NewsBreak
Netvibes
Pageflakes
Planet
Rojo.com
Prismatic
Spokeo
The Old Reader
Tiny Tiny RSS
TweetDeck
WebGUI
Windows Live Personalized Experience
winnowTag
Media
aggregators
Podcast client
Adobe Media Player
Akregator
Amarok
Flock
Apple Podcasts
Juice
MediaMonkey
Miro
Rhythmbox
Songbird
Winamp
Zune
RSS + BitTorrent
BitLord
BitTorrent 6
Deluge
Miro
qBittorrent
Tribler
μTorrent
Vuze
Related
articles
Comparison of feed aggregators
History of media aggregation
RSS enclosure
Italics
indicate discontinued software.
Retrieved from "
Categories
Change detection and notification
Push technology
Web syndication
XML-based standards
Atom (web standard)
RSS
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