RSS Specifications
From LoveToKnow Web-Design
RSS specifications are the bible for any web designer looking to implement Really Simple Syndication into hir or her website. The official definition of RSS is that it is a "web content syndication format using a dialect of XML." What this means is that RSS is like the post office.
RSS and Delivering Content
Think of content as something like a magazine. People can go to bookstores and get magazines, just as a person can go to a web page in a browser to access a blog entry or some other periodic content.
However, an easier way to get the magazines is to have them delivered to your house directly. RSS is a way to have the content of that blog or podcast delivered directly to your computer using a "feedreader" or other program (such as iTunes for podcasts). Every time the computer is hooked up to the internet, it will go and find the latest edition of the content. It does this by accessing the file that has been tailored to RSS specifications.
The Most Basic RSS Specifications
Aside from having the file suffix ".rss," the minimum amount of information necessary for a document (or "channel") to be "well-formed" is simply three elements:
- Title This is the name of the blog, podcast, or other syndicated content. "Your Goldfish and You," for example.
- Link This is the URL link to the website corresponding to the content: http://www.yourgoldfishandyou.com .
- Description A simple sentence that describes the content of the channel: "Deep conversations between goldfish and human"
That's it to complete an RSS specifications compliant channel.
Optional Channel Elements
There are many other elements, however, that can go into an RSS document, which provide the feedreader and the end user with [[Meta Tag Optimization Service|helpful information] such as
- Language
- Copyright
- Webmaster
- Publication date
- Category
ITEMs Created to RSS Specifications
The <item> element is the meat and potatoes of the RSS document. Every item is a new chunk of content – a new blog entry, a new video, a new podcast – and the elements of an item describe that content and how it is the same or different than the previous item.Like the channel elements, the item has only a couple of mandatory pieces of information: title and description. Everything else, while optional, should be included if possible.
- Title This is obvious, something like "Blog Entry 239" or "Pandas Use Chopsticks."
- Link The URL to find the item itself (not the entire channel, just the item)
- Description The only other required element of an <item>, this should be a short phrase or sentence.
- Author Email address, usually, not the given name.
- Category In order to subdivide and meta-tag the information, categories may be assigned.
- Comments A link to a forum or bulletin board for commenting on the item itself with other users.
- Enclosure – This is a particular description of the object, often with media attributes for sound or video files.
- guid A URL like "link" above that distinctly labels the <item>
- pubdate The date when the <item> was published.
- Source – again the channel where the <item> was made into part of the feed.
The Future of RSS
RSS has the unusual distinction of being declared perfect, for what it is. It is an open source project, but has remained frozen at version 2.01 simply because it does what it is designed to do, and does it well. Other forms of syndicated content are also being developed, but RSS has become something of a standard. It would certainly be a necessary skill in today's competitive web design market.
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This page has been accessed 810 times. This page was last modified 04:46, 6 July 2008.
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