As more and more content is added to web every second it becomes almost impossible for us to keep track of our favorite sites every now and then.  Thanks to RSS our life has become much easier. As May 1^st, the RSS Awareness Day is approaching I thought of dedicating a post to it.

In case you are still unclear about the term RSS, Wikipedia describes it as:

RSS is a family of Web feed formats used to publish frequently updated content such as blog entries, news headlines, and podcasts. An RSS document (which is called a “feed” or “web feed” or “channel”) contains either a summary of content from an associated web site or the full text. RSS makes it possible for people to keep up with web sites in an automated manner that can be piped into special programs or filtered displays.

RSS content can be read using software called an “RSS reader”, “feed reader” or an “aggregator“. The user subscribes to a feed by entering the feed’s link into the reader or by clicking an RSS icon in a browser that initiates the subscription process. The reader checks the user’s subscribed feeds regularly for new content, downloading any updates that it finds.

Back in 2005, mere 5% of the Internet users said they were using RSS aggregators or XML readers to get the news and other information delivered from blogs and content-rich Web sites as it is posted online (according to the Pew Internet Project). And now there are millions of users using RSS or feed readers like Google Reader, Feed Burner, etc.

And with increasing number of bloggers and internet users RSS might become handy. In near future more improvements and value added services will surely make RSS still more killer application.

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