RSS: The Web Made Manageable

This BBC article is 2 years old, but still it's a good place to begin to get your head around the acronyms: RSS, XML, et al. Their definition of RSS is neatly explanatory.

"What is RSS?

In a world heaving under the weight of billions of web pages, keeping up to date with the information you want can be a drag.

Wouldn't it be better to have the latest news and features delivered directly to you, rather than clicking from site to site?

RSS allows you to see when sites from all over the internet have added new content. You can get the latest headlines and articles (or even audio files, photographs or video) in one place, as soon as they are published, without having to remember to visit each site every day.

It takes the hassle out of staying up-to-date, by showing you the very latest information that you are interested in.

There is some discussion as to what RSS stands for, but most people plump for 'Really Simple Syndication'. RSS feeds are just a special kind of web page, designed to be read by computers rather than people. It might help think of them as the free, internet version of the old-fashioned ticker-tape news wire machines."