resource description framework (RDF)

The Resource Description Framework(RDF) is a general and flexible data model for describing resources and the successor format to the Meta Content Framework( MCF).

The RDF framework, a recommendation from the W3C consortium, is an XML application and provides metadata for various applications. As a text-based description format, the RDF format is used for describing news by online newsrooms. Since the information represented in the Resource Description Framework has a network-like structure, the W3C consortium uses the Resource Description Framework as an approach towards a semantic Web.

The RDF framework supports Web-based information exchange between applications and is also intended to be used in Web 3.0, the semantic Web. The RDF structure is limited to the headline, the summary and the webaddress( URL) from the web page where the whole message is located. The information is machine-readable and tagged, and can be encoded, exchanged, and reused. The RDF framework is a feed format, it corresponds to the RSS feed in version 1.0 and is sometimes labeled as such.