The Wall Street Journal Personal Technology section gives a nice overview of RSS. I also wonder about the characterization that RSS is for “news-oriented” readers:

Whichever approach you choose, if you are a news-oriented Web surfer who wants the latest stuff from a broad range of sources, RSS can be a great boon.

I think that this is true as far as the consumption of mainstream media is concerned. I find the greatest real value, though, in keeping track of my friends’ blogs and photos. It’s especially helpful for folks that don’t update their sites frequently. I use RSS to keep an eye on technology and sports. I use it for a lot of things that aren’t about reading lots of web sites daily. The main thing I like about the big media sites like ESPN.com having RSS is that it gives me a reason to check the aggregator each day. Since I’m consuming the web this way, adding another friends blog or photo feed is really trivial and makes sure I don’t miss out.