Basics of RSS
RSS is a simple XML-based system which stands for Really Simple Syndication and was created so you can keep track of your favorite sites remotely. You can ’subscribe’ to the content of a site by grabbing their RSS url and dropping it into an RSS reader (also known as a ‘News Aggregator’ mostly used for text or ‘Podcatchers’ for podcasts). By doing so, you can display the content of several sites in one place, saving you time and effort.

Advantages of RSS
For Readers, it cuts down time substantially by having one place where you can review all your favorite sites.
For Bloggers / Publishers, it provides a faster and more assured way to instantly distribute your content to your readers as well as making it easier for them to keep up.
For Advertisers, compared to traditional marketing channels, it is less cluttered and takes your ads directly to targeted readers which are interested in your products and/or services.
Meaning that by utilizing RSS Feeds, everyone wins!

Getting Started with RSS Feeds
First, choose an RSS Reader which best suits your style. Below is a list of the most popular ones to date (as listed on FeedBurner), but feel free to compile your own search for more options.

Applications

• NewsGator - FeedDemon 2.0
  (Windows, more info)
• NewsGator - Inbox for Microsoft Outlook
  (Windows)
• NewsGator - NetNewsWire
  (OS X)
• Pluck
  (IE or Firefox, PC)
• Firefox
  (via “Live Bookmarks” feature)
• Safari
  (feed support in the Apple OS X native browser)
• Pulp Fiction
  (OS X)

Online Services

• NewsGator
  (Online)
• My Yahoo!
• Bloglines
• Pluck
  (Web Edition)
• Rojo
• Newsburst

Podcast Readers

• iTunes
• Juice
• Doppler
• FireANT

Secondly, once you’ve chosen an RSS Reader, go ahead and browse through your favorite sites to see which ones have an RSS Feed you can subscribe to. Usually you’ll be searching for the universal RSS icons shown in the images above, but if not just look for an ‘RSS Feed’ link.

Once you have the RSS urls in place, sign-in to your chosen RSS Reader and drop them in by simply copying the urls and adding them to your list. (RSS Readers differ by method but usually its pretty simple as to clicking on an ‘Add Feeds’ button/link.)
Now your done! You’re now trendy.

More on RSS
For those of you that are still hungry for RSS info, here’s a bit more on the technical side of RSS.
If you are looking to provide your users with an RSS Feed, most popular publishing platforms (such as; Wordpress, Blogger, MovableType, TypePad, etc.) provide tools to get you started. But if you have a more traditional website which is not built on one of these platforms above, there are also tools to transform your content into a compatible format for RSS distribution. Seems a bit troublesome but in actuality you should be up and running in no time. Here are a couple of great links to get you started the right way.

RSS Feed Resources

• RSS - Crossing into the Mainstream by Yahoo!
• Building and Using an RSS Feed
• Publish Your RSS Feed with FeedBurner
• RSS and Atom - Understanding and Implementing Content Feeds and Syndication

Just leave a comment below if you need to clear something up and either myself or a friend should help you out.