RSS
RSS provides content publishers with a convenient way to distribute information in a standardized format. The standardized XML file format only needs to publish the information once and can be viewed through many different programs (such as Outlook). A common example of RSS content is a source of information such as frequently updated news headlines.
The advantage of RSS is that it brings together everything from many web sources to the same location. In other words, you no longer have to visit different websites to get the latest information on topics of interest. With the help of RSS, you will receive a summary of the content, and then click on the link to decide which articles you want to read.
RSS content is usually text-based, and publishers include a wide variety of sources, but primarily media outlets or personal blogs (also known as "blogs"). Think of your blog as an online log. As the popularity of RSS has grown, so has the latest types of content, including multimedia-based content. The process of sharing such content is called a blogcast or a podcast broadcast. For example, some media outlets will provide a voice version of their individual news stories.
The delivery mechanism for RSS content is called "RSS Summary". There are millions of RSS feeds that are made up of headlines or short summaries of content and provide a link to the original source. However, the summary can also contain complete content, as well as most types of attachments. Alias for RSS feeds include Web feeds, XML feeds, RSS feeds, and Syndicated Content.
Most people use some form of client software to read RSS feeds. These programs are called RSS aggregators or RSS readers. Outlook includes the functionality of the RSS aggregator.