RSS and Marketing
RSS isn't anything new. It's been around for some time now and by all means, an RSS reader can be a very useful tool. In fact I've done 'lunch and learns' to educate others about RSS, what it is, what it can do and how it can help you.
The premise is this. RSS is an XML feed that is produced dynamically (typically) by your favorite site. You subscribe to this feed via your favorite RSS reader and the stories/news come to you. It's kind of like getting mail. You don't have to go out and get news from your favorite site each day; the news is spoonfed to you in a non fancy sort of way. You get updates as your favorite site's feed gets updated.
That being said, I get a bit tired of looking at the blandness of a typical RSS feed. Sure there are occasionally pics and some basic HTML in the feeds, but nothing is quite like taking in all the features (and ads, dare I say it) of an actual site or blog. As of right now, I subscribe to some 15 feeds (using FeedReader) and none of them implement any real marketing. I know...'real simple syndication', yada yada, but someone has to implement this eventually. It will be interesting to see what develops in the way of marketing with RSS feeds in the future.