RSS, or Really Simple Syndication, is a tool that has been around since 1999 and has had a significant impact on the way content is consumed on the internet. It allows websites to syndicate their content in an efficient and organized manner, making it easier for readers to access the latest articles without having to visit the site. News sites like The BBC and New York Times heavily promoted the RSS icon on their sites, allowing readers to subscribe to the whole site or specific sections.
One of the main benefits of using RSS feeds is increased productivity and readability. By subscribing to your favorite blogs, you can save time by reading the content in your RSS reader. Additionally, RSS readers allow you to customize the font, size, and line-height of the content, creating an optimal reading experience that is consistent across different sites.
RSS feeds are coded in XML and can be accessed through RSS readers or web browsers with built-in support for parsing RSS feeds. WordPress has built-in support for RSS, automatically delivering new posts to all its RSS feeds. There are four types of RSS feed formats supported by WordPress: RSS, RSS 2.0, Atom, and RDF.
WordPress also allows for multiple RSS feeds to be deployed, allowing visitors to subscribe to specific content. For example, a reader interested in psychology can subscribe to http://www.example.com/category/phychology/feed to receive only posts filed under psychology.
RSS readers are software that helps manage multiple RSS feeds by organizing them into folders, tags, and categories. They can be cross-platform and mobile-ready, with popular options including Feedly, Bloglines, Feedzilla, NewsBlur, and NetVibes.
While email marketing has become more popular in recent years due to its ability to provide access to on-demand pools of customers, RSS remains a necessary communication medium for those who subscribe to a lot of sites and do not want to flood their inbox.
In conclusion, RSS has been a powerful tool for delivering fresh content since the early 2000s. While its popularity has declined in recent years due to the rise of email marketing, it remains a necessary tool for those who want to stay up-to-date with their favorite sites without having to visit them regularly.
