What are feeds?

In a world heaving under the virtual weight of billions of web pages, keeping up with websites can be a chore. RSS feeds let you keep up to date with the latest info on all your favourite sites without having to take the trouble to visit them. In effect, bits of their sites come to you instead.

You already know the web pages you like to visit – you probably have them in your browser's "Favourites". However, it is not easy to tell when they've been updated without visiting each one and checking. Computers, though, can tell when sites have been updated, using a feed.

An RSS feed is usually made up of a number of titles and short summaries of full content on the website that produced the feed. In other words, you can quickly look at the summaries and, at a glance, tell if you want to click through and visit the full version on the website. Plus, your computer will let you know when a new feed is available. And that's what an RSS feed is – a summary of the latest content on a website so that you can see whether there is anything new or interesting available.

Although there is some debate about what RSS really stands for, the majority plump for Really Simple Syndication. Unlike some obscure technical terms, this one does what it says on the tin: it's a simple web syndication format. RSS is also an international standard, and is rapidly growing in popularity. It used to be just technology and blog sites that offered it, but RSS is now becoming mainstream: many bbc.co.uk sites now offer RSS feeds.

It is becoming more popular because it makes keeping up to date with the sites you like quick and easy.