4 March, 2009

This post is in: Social media, tools

What is RSS?

Explaining to the uninitiated why web feeds are useful is something a lot of us find hard to do. So here I’ve attempted to draw an analogy: with fish.

I’m not actually going to try and explain what RSS is (or equivalents such as Atom), because it’s a bit technical and has a confusing history complicated by politics.

Instead I’m going to try explaining what a feed reader does, using an analogical story. I welcome feedback on the usefulness of this.

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Once upon a time there was a vast lake, dense with fish. There were millions of them – of many different species, shapes, colours and sizes – and thousands of new fish appeared every minute.

Each day huge numbers of people would dive into the lake to look at the fish. But many only wanted to see certain kinds: people interested in blue fish only wanted to see blue fish; people interested in red fish with a fin missing only wanted to see those; and so on.

Unfortunately there were just too many fish. People were missing the fish they wanted to see, and the fish themselves were not getting the attention they deserved.

Then one day a group of clever folk invented a special kind of diving goggles. These goggles could be set to display only those fish that met certain criteria. So people who only wanted to see blue fish could now do so with little trouble.

And because the goggles knew which fish the user liked, they could let them know of other fish that they might find interesting.

On top of that, the user could fine-tune the goggles to display exactly the fish they wanted to see (for example they could choose not to see Bob Bigfin, who was an annoying blue fish). They could also set the goggles to tell their friends automatically which fish they liked.

Of course, lots of people thought this was a great idea and started manufacturing their own goggles. Some gave theirs away free of charge, and some sold theirs with extra features.

And so everyone was able to find what they were looking for in the enormous lake, and discover new fish based on what they already liked.

And so it is with your feed reader: you can filter the web for what interests you. The difference is that you don’t have to swim around the lake: you see the results all in one place, without having to go back to a website or search engine.

All you need to do is give the feed reader the address for the feed, be it RSS or Atom (you may be given a number of options for different versions of both: don’t worry too much about which to choose, it won’t make much difference). The feed reader then does the rest for you:  it looks online and displays anything new almost as soon as it’s published.
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Could this be any use in explaining the virtues of using feeds?

Update

6 March 2009: I amended the story in line with the changes I incorporated over at We Share Stuff.

Social media,tools

3 Responses to “What is RSS?”

  1. Julia Gilbert says:
    4 March, 2009 at 11:21 am

    Love it! I am, after all, much more interested in the purple fish with green spots and the yellow fish with blue stripes than any other fish and I like the fact that they swim right up to me and I don’t have to go chasing after them.

    I like the fact that the special goggles can also let me know about other fish I might be interested in that I didn’t even know existed, based on the fish I already like. I also like how I can tweek the goggles to, for example, exclude the fish called Bob or automatically show the fish that I like to my friends.

    [Does that last para fit with the analogy?]

      

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  2. Andy Mabbett says:
    27 April, 2009 at 12:11 pm

    We’ve had “give a man a fish” and “teach a man to fish”, now we can add “teach a man how to look at fish”.

    It’s time someone taught that poor man how to make chips!

      

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