XML and RSS and other internet abbreviations

XML
XML stand for Extensible Markup Language. It is a general markup language. Markup languages are essentially a programming language which contains text and information about that text. XML is a free to use language that enables cross platform compatibility of web content. Applications can also be inplimented within XML by adding semantic constraints. XML is used in XHTML and RSS feeds. More information about XML can be found here at Wikipeida.

RSS
RSS can stand for Rich Site Summary or more commonly Really Simple Syndication. RSS is used to provide feeds of updates to the rapidly changing web based content such as blogs, news and podcasts. RSS is a family of web formats used for this purpose. RSS is based on the generic XML format mentioned above. These feeds can be subscibed to by programs called feed readers or aggregators by a user and so the user can see any new content since they last checked. RSS is very iimportant because it enables rich content like podcasts to be subscribed to and the latest episodes downloaded. It also enable new or interesting articles to be identified quickly and simply. RSS allows advanced web functionality demanded by the growing group of web 2.0 users. More information about RSS can be found here.