Counters and RSS

Counters

A counter is an 'application' or piece of javascript/code that keeps track of how many unique hits you have to your website. They could be useful for seeing how many different people visit your site, and because they also track other statistics, such as where they're from, what browser they're using, and what operating system they use, you could get a very good image of your sites demographic, meaning you could shape content around them. Besides Bravenet and Google Analytics there are a number of other web analysis tools, and some of these are Microsoft Gatineau, Omniture and WebTrends. Many more can be found from a simple Google search.

RSS

RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication and basically sends feeds or basic information of what has been updated from a particular website. It can be used to keep track of updates for a number of sites or blogs, meaning that if a site is updated then the RSS will relay that information to your reader or other RSS program, allowing you to view the update, which can come in handy if you regularly visit the same sites, meaning you could save time by having all the content grouped in to the one program/site/application. Something that relies on RSS is Google Reader. It allows you to add a number of different feeds, and it then will allow you to view all of them in one page. It also allows you to tag and share feeds with friends or other people who may have a similar interest.