RSS stands for Rich Site Summary or Really Simple Syndication, depending on whom you ask. However, that's beside the point; the important part is that RSS gives you a way to receive SoftwareCEO's news and content electronically, without using e-mail.
In his article, "About RSS," here's how tech guru and publisher Chris Pirillo explains RSS:
"It enables headlines to be distributed online instantly and then interpreted seven ways from Sunday. Instead of giving people a newsletter formatted to our tastes and delivered on our time schedule, we can provide them with a means to get the same content in text or HTML whenever they want it."
How it works
To receive RSS content — called an RSS feed — you use a news reader or a news aggregator. These are relatively simple pieces of software, many of them free, that you download and install on your computer.
Your news reader "scrapes" newly-posted headlines and summaries of RSS content you've subscribed to, and delivers those headlines instantly to your computer.
 The orange XML graphic is the most common indicator that you've come upon an RSS-ready publisher; however, individual RSS readers have their own logos and symbols.
You receive only the RSS feeds you've subscribed to, and subscribing reveals nothing about you to the publisher. You don't have to hand out your address to anyone, and you have complete control over your subscriptions. And, because they don't go through your e-mail client, RSS feeds are not blocked by spam filters and over-zealous IT administrators.
RSS readers
We use NewsGator (Windows, $29, free trial), because it integrates nicely with Microsoft Outlook; the RSS feeds we've subscribed to are delivered to a unique inbox folder as if they're e-mail messages (even though they're not).
Your choice, however, should be determined by your working style and personal preference. If you don't use Outlook, for example, or don't want more stuff in your Inbox, you may prefer a standalone news reader, or one that integrates with your browser.
There are hundreds of readers available, and the technology media review them frequently. There's a very good list of RSS readers, arranged alphabetically, at Weblogs Compendium. For a longer list of RSS readers, arranged by platform, try John Abbe's list at AbbeNormal.
Additional resources
RSS is a hot topic right now, so there's no shortage of articles out there. In addition to Pirillo's article cited above, we also like "Business Blogs and RSS Feeds" by Ralph Wilson, and "RSS Primer" from M. Moffat.
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