The Evolution of RSS | 3

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The Evolution of RSS

RSS 0.9

Originated by UserLand Software in 1997, Netscape Communications subsequently announced RSS 0.9 (RDF Site Summary) in March 1999. Intended for populating their My Netscape portal with news channels, 0.9 is a simple XML format with 10 elements used to describe information about Web sites, typically news stories or articles, etc. These elements include the notion of a "channel," that contains up to 15 "item"s, each of which consist of a "title" and a "link." Webmasters could use RSS 0.9 files to syndicate their content, using links (no descriptions) to their stories. The format is still quite popular, with about 45% of RSS files surveyed in May, 2001.

From the RSS 0.9 DTD:

"RSS is an XML/RDF vocabulary for describing metadata about websites, and enabling the display of 'channels' on the 'My Netscape' website."

<!ELEMENT rdf:RDF (channel | image? | item+ | textinput?)*>
<!ATTLIST rdf:RDF
          xmlns:rdf CDATA #FIXED "https://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#"
          xmlns     CDATA #REQUIRED> <!-- must be "https://my.netscape.com/rdf/simple/0.9/"> -->
<!ELEMENT channel (title | description | link)*>
<!ELEMENT title (#PCDATA)>
<!ELEMENT description (#PCDATA)>
<!ELEMENT link (#PCDATA)>
<!ELEMENT image (title | url | link)*>
<!ELEMENT url (#PCDATA)>
<!ELEMENT item (title | link)*>
<!ELEMENT textinput (title | description | name | link)*>
<!ELEMENT name (#PCDATA)>

Example RSS 0.9 File

Here's a snippet of an actual RSS 0.9 file from WebReference.com:

<rdf:RDF
xmlns:rdf="https://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#"
xmlns="https://my.netscape.com/rdf/simple/0.9/">
<channel>
<title>WebReference News</title>
<link>https://www.webreference.com</link>
<description>Daily news, views, and how-tos on all aspects of web design 
and development. Features free web-based tools, open source scripts, and 
in-depth tutorials on DHTML, HTML, JavaScript, 3D, Graphics, XML, and Design 
for webmasters.</description>
</channel>
<image>
<title>WebReference.com</title>
<url>https://webreference.com/art/wr.gif</url>
<link>https://www.WebReference.com</link>
</image>
<item>
<title>The Evolution of RSS</title>
<link>https://www.webreference.com/authoring/languages/xml/rss/1/</link>
</item>
<item>
<title>Weblog 2.0 Released</title>
<link>https://www.webreference.com/perl/tutorial/22/</link>
</item>
...

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