A web feed (or news feed) is a data format used for providing users with frequently updated content. Content distributors syndicate a web feed, thereby allowing users to subscribe to it. Making a collection of web feeds accessible in one spot is known as aggregation, which is performed by a news aggregator. A web feed is also sometimes referred to as a syndicated feed.

A typical scenario of web feed use is: a content provider publishes a feed link on their site which end users can register with an aggregator program (also called a feed reader or a news reader) running on their own machines; doing this is usually as simple as dragging the link from the web browser to the aggregator. When instructed, the aggregator asks all the servers in its feed list if they have new content; if so, the aggregator either makes a note of the new content or downloads it. Aggregators can be scheduled to check for new content periodically. Web feeds are an example of pull technology, although they may appear to push content to the user.

Feed or feedmag.com (1995–2001) was one of the earliest online magazines that relied entirely on its original content.

History

Feed was founded in New York by Stefanie Syman and Steven Johnson in May 1995, with novelist Sam Lipsyte serving as one of its editors.

One of the web's earliest general-interest daily publications, Feed focused on media, pop culture, technology, science and the arts.

Feed soon found a devoted following among an alternative readership and was critically acclaimed, but as a small independent publication it struggled to raise sufficient advertising revenue.

In July 2000, following a sharp downturn in Internet investment, Feed merged with the popular editorial site Suck.com to create Automatic Media. The two sites sought to streamline their operations and collaborate with low staffing costs. Their joint project Plastic.com was founded with only four staffed employees. Despite the faithful cult following and a combined reader base of over 1 million, Automatic Media folded in June 2001, and Feed closed operations.

Feed is the first book in the Newsflesh series of science fiction/horror novels written by Seanan McGuire under the pen name Mira Grant and published by Orbit Books in 2010. Set during the aftermath of a zombie apocalypse and written from the perspective of blog journalist Georgia Mason, Feed follows Georgia and her news team as they follow the presidential campaign of Republican senator Peter Ryman. A series of deadly incidents leads Georgia and her brother Shaun to discover efforts to undermine the campaign, linked to a larger conspiracy involving the undead.

McGuire's interests in horror movies and virology inspired her to write the book, but she struggled with the plot until a friend suggested using an election as a framing device. The novel has been praised for its detailed worldbuilding, including the characters' awareness of previous zombie fiction—an element McGuire had found lacking in most horror works. Feed came second in the 2011 Hugo Award for Best Novel category. Deadline is the second book in the Newsflesh series. Just before the third installment, Blackout (May 22, 2012), was published, McGuire released an alternate ending to Feed.

Feed (2002) is a young adult dystopian novel of the cyberpunk subgenre written by M. T. Anderson. The novel focuses on issues such as corporate power, consumerism, information technology, data mining, and environmental decay, with a sometimes sardonic, sometimes somber tone. From the first-person perspective of a teenager, the novel presents a near-futuristic American culture completely dominated by advertising and corporate exploitation, corresponding to the enormous popularity of internetworking brain implants.

Plot

Context

The novel portrays a near-future in which the feednet, a huge computer network (apparently an advanced form of the Internet), is directly connected to the brains of about 73% of American citizens by means of an implanted device called a feed. The feed allows people: to mentally access vast digital databases (individually called "sites"); to experience shareable virtual-reality phenomena (including entertainment programs, music, and even others' memories); to continually interact with intrusive corporations in a personal preference-based way; and to communicate telepathically on closed channels with others who also have feeds (a feature called m-chatting).

.web is a generic top-level domain that will be awarded by ICANN to one of seven registry applicants. The .web TLD will be in the official root once ICANN awards the registry contract.

Historic information about .web

.web was operated as a prospective registry, not in the official root, by Image Online Design since 1995. It originated when Jon Postel, then running the top level of the Domain Name System basically single-handedly, proposed the addition of new top-level domains to be run by different registries. Since Internet tradition at the time emphasized "rough consensus and running code", Christopher Ambler, who ran Image Online Design, saw this as meaning that his company could get a new TLD into the root by starting up a functional registry for it. After asking and receiving permission from IANA to do so, IOD launched .web, a new unrestricted top level domain.

Since then IOD has tried to get their domain into the official root through several plans to admit new top-level domains. Several new-TLD plans in the late 1990s, including Postel's original proposal, failed to reach sufficient consensus among the increasingly contentious factions of the Internet to admit any new TLDs, including .web. When ICANN accepted applications for new TLDs in 2000 which resulted in the seven new domains added soon afterward, IOD's application was not approved; neither was it officially rejected, however, since all unapproved applications remain in play for possible future acceptance. A second round of new TLDs, however, was done entirely with new applications, and only for sponsored domains (generally intended for use by limited communities and run by nonprofit entities). The .web registry remains hopeful, however, that their application will eventually be approved. On May 10, 2007, ICANN announced the opening of public comments towards a new, third round of new gTLDs, a round in which IOD has not participated.

Web or Webs may refer to:

Arachnology

Computing

Mathematics

In mathematics, a web permits an intrinsic characterization in terms of Riemannian geometry of the additive separation of variables in the Hamilton–Jacobi equation.

Formal definition

An orthogonal web on a Riemannian manifold (M,g) is a set of n pairwise transversal and orthogonal foliations of connected submanifolds of codimension 1 and where n denotes the dimension of M.

Note that two submanifolds of codimension 1 are orthogonal if their normal vectors are orthogonal and in a nondefinite metric orthogonality does not imply transversality.

Alternative definition

Given a smooth manifold of dimension n, an orthogonal web (also called orthogonal grid or Ricci’s grid) on a Riemannian manifold (M,g) is a set of n pairwise transversal and orthogonal foliations of connected submanifolds of dimension 1.

Remark

Since vector fields can be visualized as stream-lines of a stationary flow or as Faraday’s lines of force, a non-vanishing vector field in space generates a space-filling system of lines through each point, known to mathematicians as a congruence (i.e., a local foliation). Ricci’s vision filled Riemann’s n-dimensional manifold with n congruences orthogonal to each other, i.e., a local orthogonal grid.