RSS History
The first version of RSS called RDF Site Summary was created by Netscape in March 1999 for use on the My Netscape portal. The first version is known as RSS 0.9. Later in 1999, in respond to users' comments and suggestions, Dan Libby invented a prototype became known as RSS 0.91. The new version had simplified the format.
Please note: that old versions of RSS like 0.90, 0.91 were not used for syndication. RSS was an acronym of "Rich Site Summary", and the functionality was different from what is now known as RSS. Older formats simply provided a website summary, much like a contents listing.
In April 2001 AOL has acquired Netscape and begun restructuring Netscape properties. A new design of the My Netscape portal had no RSS support. The RSS-format was left without an owner at the time it was becoming widely used.
In 2000 various programmers and users created a working group and mailing list called RSS-DEV to continue RSS development. At the same time, UserLand Software and its owner, Dave Winer (who also was one of the RSS-creators in the 90's), posted a modified version of the RSS 0.91 specification to the Userland website. This was a major fork in the development of the RSS format (became known as the "RSS fork"). Neither side had any official claim on the name or the format.
The RSS-DEV group produced RSS 1.0 in December 2000. In the next several weeks UserLand released its alternative - 0.92. Version 0.92 had become a prototype for RSS 2.0, released in 2002. Version 2.0 emphasized "Really Simple Syndication" as the meaning of abbreviation and featured a really simple, human-readable format.
In November 2002, The New York Times began offering its readers the ability to subscribe to RSS news feeds. This adoption of RSS has driven the RSS format to become a de facto standard.
Mozilla Firefox browser was the first to present a feed icon 
, an orange square with white radio waves. This icon has become an industry standard for RSS after Microsoft had announced in 2005 that they will be adopting this icon to be used in Internet Explorer and Outlook.