The reason RSS has become so useful stems from the growth in popularity of weblogs, the online journals that have surged into prominence in recent years. Almost all weblog-creation software automatically creates an XML file based on weblog postings, in which key elements of the postings, such as titles and some or all of the text, are saved in RSS format.
That led to the creation of so-called aggregators, or newsreaders -- not the Usenet newsgroup readers of lore, but client applications that pull in the RSS feeds from various weblogs. This has given users the ability to aggregate information from a variety of sources into a single application, freeing them from having to surf to many sites. Newsreaders check RSS files regularly and highlight new material.
Other content creators noticed what was happening with weblogs and started creating RSS feeds of their own material. For example, the British Broadcasting Corp. Web operation has dozens of RSS feeds on a wide range of material. You can even get a Harry Potter news feed from the BBC.
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