{"id":20445,"date":"2020-01-29T19:04:21","date_gmt":"2020-01-29T19:04:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/glosario-digital\/feed-2"},"modified":"2026-09-20T10:05:55","modified_gmt":"2026-09-20T10:05:55","slug":"feed-2","status":"publish","type":"encyclopedia","link":"https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/en\/digital-glossary\/feed-2","title":{"rendered":"Feed"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"boxpad alignright wp-image-14305 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/Feed-1.png\" alt=\"Feed\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/Feed-1.png 300w, https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/Feed-1-150x150.png 150w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>Definition:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>A <strong>feed<\/strong> is an updated stream of content or data whose items share a common structure. It may appear as a scrollable list, as on a social network or news website, or be transmitted to another system through a file or connection.<\/p>\n<p>Each item usually contains basic information such as a title, date, image, author, price or link, depending on its purpose. Items may be ordered chronologically, according to editorial rules or by a recommendation algorithm. A feed is therefore not necessarily personalized and is not always the same as RSS.<\/p>\n\n<h2>Types of feed<\/h2>\n<p>The term is used in several contexts that share the idea of delivering a sequence of items that can be updated:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Content feed:<\/strong> brings together articles, videos, posts or other items within a website or application. It may be chronological or ordered by relevance.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Social media feed:<\/strong> combines posts from followed accounts, recommendations, advertising and other updates. Its composition depends on each platform&#8217;s rules.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Syndication feed:<\/strong> distributes updates from a source so that a reader or another service can collect them. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/en\/digital-glossary\/rss-2\">RSS<\/a> and Atom are formats used for this purpose.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Product or data feed:<\/strong> transfers structured records between systems. A catalogue sent to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/en\/digital-glossary\/google-merchant-center\">Google Merchant Center<\/a>, for example, can include identifiers, titles, prices, availability and images.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The same organization may use several types. A publisher can offer an ordered homepage, publish an RSS channel and send its content to other applications without those three outputs being identical.<\/p>\n<h2>How a feed is generated and ordered<\/h2>\n<p>A feed starts with a source such as a database, content management system or user activity. The system selects items that meet its conditions and transforms them into the format required by the interface or recipient.<\/p>\n<p>In a chronological feed, updates appear according to their publication date. In a ranked feed, an <a href=\"https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/en\/digital-glossary\/algorithm\">algorithm<\/a> may assess signals such as the relationship with the author, recency, topic, previous interactions or estimated quality. It can also apply limits, moderation and commercial rules.<\/p>\n<p>Updates do not always happen in the same way. Some interfaces request new items as the user scrolls; an RSS reader checks the source periodically; and a commerce platform may receive a scheduled file, spreadsheet or <a href=\"https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/en\/digital-glossary\/api\">API<\/a>. The visible result depends on both the available data and the update frequency and rules.<\/p>\n<h2>Differences from related concepts<\/h2>\n<p>Feed, RSS, timeline and profile grid often appear in similar conversations, but they describe different things:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>RSS:<\/strong> is an XML-based syndication format. An RSS channel is a type of feed, but many feeds do not use RSS or support an external subscription.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Timeline:<\/strong> emphasizes the time sequence of items. It can form part of a feed, although many current feeds change the chronological order.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Profile grid:<\/strong> displays posts associated with an account or entity. It does not necessarily match the main feed received by each user.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Aggregator:<\/strong> collects and presents items from several sources. The feed is the stream it consumes or displays; the aggregator is the system that brings those items together.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>This distinction also affects control. With an RSS subscription, the person chooses the sources and reader. In a platform feed, selection and order may depend largely on rules administered by the provider.<\/p>\n<h2>Creation and maintenance<\/h2>\n<p>Implementation depends on the type of feed. A website can expose an RSS or Atom file, an application can build a list from its database, and a shop can send its catalogue in the format required by each platform. In every case, several elements need to be defined:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Source and scope:<\/strong> which records may enter, who creates them and what conditions they must meet.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Structure:<\/strong> which fields are required, which identifier preserves each item and how dates, categories or states are represented.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Updates:<\/strong> when changes are included, how items are removed and what happens if synchronization fails.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Access:<\/strong> whether the feed is public, requires authentication or must respect different permissions for each user.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Quality:<\/strong> how duplicates, broken links, incomplete data or discrepancies with the original source are detected.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Content feeds also need readable, accessible and progressively loaded interfaces. An endless sequence can support discovery, but it can make it difficult to return to a particular position and may hide the end of a page.<\/p>\n<h2>Use in digital marketing<\/h2>\n<p>Feeds can distribute content, display recommendations, maintain catalogues and provide advertising spaces integrated between items. Their usefulness depends on keeping information current and presenting it in a way that makes clear what the user is seeing.<\/p>\n<p>A content feed may be evaluated through impressions, item opens or views, clicks, consumption depth and subsequent actions. For a product feed, catalogue coverage, disapprovals, current prices and availability also matter. These metrics should be tied to the feed&#8217;s purpose rather than treated as interchangeable.<\/p>\n<p>Personalization can improve relevance, but it requires transparency and control over the data being used. In a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/en\/digital-glossary\/smo-social-media-optimization\">social media<\/a> strategy, a brand also does not fully control the order or distribution of its posts: it depends on the platform, the audience and the response to each piece of content.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Definition: A feed is an updated stream of content or data whose items share a common structure. It may appear as a scrollable list, as on a social network or news website, or be transmitted to another system through a file or connection. Each item usually contains basic information such as a title, date, image, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"template":"","encyclopedia-tag":[1338,1379,1344],"class_list":["post-20445","encyclopedia","type-encyclopedia","status-publish","hentry","encyclopedia-tag-blog-publishing","encyclopedia-tag-digital-communication","encyclopedia-tag-social-content"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/encyclopedia\/20445","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/encyclopedia"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/encyclopedia"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20445"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"encyclopedia-tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/encyclopedia-tag?post=20445"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}