Answer:

What is RSS?

RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication

RSS allows you to syndicate your site content

RSS defines an easy way to share and view headlines and content

RSS files can be automatically updated

RSS allows personalized views for different sites

RSS is written in XML

Why use RSS?

RSS was designed to show selected data.

Without RSS, users will have to check your site daily for new updates. This may be too time-consuming for many users. With an RSS feed (RSS is often called a NEWS feed or RSS feed) they can check your site faster using an RSS aggregator (a site or program that gathers and sorts out RSS feeds).

Since RSS data is small and fast-loading, it can easily be used with SERVICES like cell phones or PDA's.

Here are some benefits of using RSS:

Choose your news

With RSS you can choose to view the news you want, the news that interest you and are relevant to your work.

Remove unwanted information

With RSS you can (finally) separate wanted information from unwanted information (SPAM)!

Increase your site traffic

With RSS you can create your own news channel, and publish it to the Internet!

The History of RSS

1997 - Dave Winer at UserLand develops scriptingNews. RSS was born

1999 - Netscape develops RSS 0.90 (which SUPPORTED scriptingNews)

1999 - Dave Winer develops scriptingNews 2.0b1 (which included RSS 0.90 features)

1999 - Netscape develops RSS 0.91 (which included most features from scriptingNews 2.0b1)

1999 - UserLand gets rid of scriptingNews and uses only RSS 0.91

1999 - Netscape STOPS their RSS development

2000 - UserLand releases the official RSS 0.91 specification

2000 - O'Reilly develops RSS 1.0. This format uses RDF and namespaces.

2000 - Dave Winer at UserLand develops RSS 0.92

2002 - Dave Winer develops RSS 2.0 after leaving UserLand

2003 - The official RSS 2.0 specification is released

RSS 1.0 is the only version that was developed using the W3C RDF (Resource Description Framework) standard.

The idea behind RDF was to help create a Semantic Web. However, this does not matter too much for ordinary users, but by using web standards it will be easier for persons and applications to exchange data.