Stock Quotes Rss

Not everyone wants to have to go to a website with a login to view their stock performance information. In fact, if you went and checked every site you wanted to draw information from, you'd be online - and not otherwise productive - almost all day.

That's where RSS feeds come in.

Wikipedia defines RSS feeds as "a family of web feed formats used to publish frequently updated works--such as blog entries, news headlines, audio, and video--in a standardized format." RSS, in case you're wondering, usually stands for "Really Simple Syndication". "An RSS document (which is called a "feed", "web feed", or "channel") includes full or summarized text, plus metadata such as publishing dates and authorship," continues Wikipedia. "Web feeds benefit publishers by letting them syndicate content automatically. They benefit readers who want to subscribe to timely updates from favored websites or to aggregate feeds from many sites into one place."

RSS feeds are read with software, usually called an "RSS reader", "feed reader", or "aggregator", all of which can are either web-based, desktop-based, or mobile-device-based. The standard XML file format was developed to allow the information to be published a single time and subsequently viewed by a number of different programs. Users subscribe to a feed by entering into the reader the feed's URL, or by clicking an RSS icon in a web browser that starts the subscription process.

"The RSS reader checks the user's subscribed feeds regularly for new work, downloads any updates that it finds, and provides a user interface to monitor and read the feeds," says Wikipedia. "RSS formats are specified using XML, a generic specification for the creation of data formats. Although RSS formats have evolved from as early as March 1999, it was between 2005 and 2006 when RSS gained widespread use, and the RSS icon was decided upon by several major Web browsers."

RSS formats were preceded by a number of attempts at web syndication that never reached widespread popularity. The fundamental idea of streamlining information about websites goes back to 1995, when Ramanathan V. Guha and other members of the Apple Advanced Technology Group created the Meta Content Framework.