What is RSS?
RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication which is a format for delivering frequently updated web content. Most news-related sites, weblogs and other online publishers syndicate their content as an RSS Feed.

Why RSS?
RSS allows you to stay informed by retrieving the latest content from the sites you are interested in. You save time by not visiting each site individually. Also you ensure your privacy by not needing to join each site’s email newsletter.

What do  I need to do to subscribe to an RSS?
Feed Reader or News Aggregator software allows you to subscribe to RSS feeds from various sites and display them for you to read and use. There are also a number of web-based  feed readers available. My Yahoo , Bloglines, and Google Reader are popular web-based feed readers, that can be used after you have registered with the chosen reader. After you have registered with one of the web-based feed readers, all that that you need to do is simply add the RSS URL into your preferred RSS reader.

The newest versions of the Internet Explorer and Firefox browsers come with built-in RSS support. If you are on a website that has an RSS feed, the browser will usually recognize this and put the RSS icon either on the address bar (in Firefox) or the tab bar (in Internet Explorer). Clicking on the RSS logo will take you to the web feed where you can subscribe to it through your browser. Firefox also allows you to choose Yahoo, Google or Bloglines in addition to the built in feed aggregator.

Help! I need an example!
Let’s suppose you wish to use Google Reader to subscribe to RSS feeds. The first thing you would do is visit the Google Reader page. (NOTE:  using the Google Reader requires that you have a Google Email, aka Gmail, account – if you  do not have one, click the “CREATE ACCOUNT” button on the right hand side of the screen, and go through the steps required to create a new account.) Once you have logged in to Google Reader with your Gmail credentials, you will notice that you have a list of options on the left hand side of the screen, and a reading pane in the center of the screen. To add RSS subscriptions, click on the “Add Subscriptions” button, located on the left hand side of the screen. You can paste in the url address for the RSS Feed you are interested here, and, once you click the “Add” button, that feed will become visible in the center reading pane.

For further instructions, Google has created some helpful videos on YouTube to get you started. Here are a couple:
Getting Started with Google Reader
Google in Plain English