RSS is an acronym that has stood for several things, depending on who's doing the explaining. I like "Really Simple Syndication" as the expansion, personally. If you don't know about RSS, you're missing out on a major way to get useful information on the Web. RSS is a way for a Web site to stuff headlines or stories into an XML file with a simple, more-or-less standard format. There are dozens of applications out there (generically called "news aggregators") that can monitor these files for changes and show you new headlines as they come out. Checking the logs for this site tells me that these aggregators are also popular with Larkware readers:
(If you're interested, I'm personally using JetBrains Omea Pro, which I recently reviewed).
Most aggregators work on a "set it and forget it" theory: you tell them how often to look at the RSS feeds (I usually go for once an hour) and when you have time you read the headlines and decide whether to click through to look at the stories. It doesn't sound like such a huge advance, but compared with surfing around to dozens of sites to find the items you want to read, RSS is a huge advance. Most people find that they can keep tabs on considerably more information with RSS than with surfing around, and find it easier to home in on the stories that interest them. RSS got its first real burst of popularity from weblogs, but it's now being used by everyone from major media outlets like the BBC and New York Times to technology companies. Microsoft, Sun, Oracle, and IBM are all providing part of their developer-oriented content via RSS these days.
If you want to get a sense of the RSS experience without installing any software, try an online aggregator - a Web site that gathers RSS feeds for you. Two popular ones are BlogLines and NewsGator Online.
I make all of the Larkware content available via RSS; the little orange buttons at the upper-left of the front page will get you there. If you're a potential sponsor, you need to realize that more readers will see your ad via RSS than directly on the Web site. That's why I'm emphasizing text sponsorships; banner advertising has not yet become widely accepted in RSS (and it may never make that leap).