RSS stands for Rich Site Summary (or Really Simple Syndication, take your pick). In a nutshell, RSS is a new way for people who publish content online to notify people interested in that content whenever fresh content is made available online.
By notifying people interested in your content, as well as Web sites that collect and package content announcements (called aggregators), you are “feeding” them your content ? hence the termRSS feed.
WHY RSS IS BETTER THAN E-MAIL ANNOUNCEMENTS. Just about everyone who publishes content online has some sort of e-mail announcement list. I do, too. Still, RSS is a great complement to e-mail announcements because it doesn’t clutter people’s in-boxes, it’s easier to manage for recipients who get a lot of news online, it’s spam-proof, and it’s easier to manage than an e-mail list.
While not a lot of people know about RSS right now, it’s getting popular quickly. I wouldn’t be surprised if in the next couple of years RSS becomes as widely known and used as the Web and e-mail.
Read the full explanation at
https://blog.contentious.com/archives/000038.html