A primer on RSS from ION RSS:

RSS is so great because it frees

you from having to deal with slow-performing websites, flashing ads,

poor site navigation and other hazards. You can have content sent to

you instead, like a well-organized piece of email. Because an RSS

reader can alert you to new entries, it’s great for following the news

or finding out when your competitor has posted something new on their

website.

The only hard part is that you need an RSS reader (like a browser for

RSS) – or “aggregator” (because the software pulls together various

feeds). There are a bunch of different ones out there, but the easiest

ones to use are the ones that attach to your email client (like Outlook

or Thunderbird). This means that your email client includes a special

set of folders for RSS. Each folder will be filled with relevant news

that you’ve specifically tailored for your needs.

I personally recommend using a web-based RSS aggregator.  This way

you won’t be limited to reading your feeds using certain

clients/machines only.  Downside is that you’d need to be online

to be able to read.  At any rate, many feeds only offer article

summaries so you’d have to go online anyway to view the full post.

And that’s from the point of view of the reader. From an author’s

perspective, RSS gives him/her the possibility of reaching out to a

larger audience, since syndication and hence a larger content

distribution network, is the essence of RSS after all.

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