rss is also a wonderful way to route data around the web, and lets a non-geek get into programmatic-like consumption of news with only a limited understanding of web technology.
its also fairly effective at storing and working with geodata. I really like the Geonames rss to georss geocoding API.
shameless plug for attention on a for-fun doo-dad I built:
intelmap.com uses an RSS feed generated by a hackernews clone at news.intelmap.com and drops it on an openlayers map. a better example of geoRSS is syria.intelmap.com, that is a collection of more lively feeds.
its also fairly effective at storing and working with geodata. I really like the Geonames rss to georss geocoding API.
shameless plug for attention on a for-fun doo-dad I built: intelmap.com uses an RSS feed generated by a hackernews clone at news.intelmap.com and drops it on an openlayers map. a better example of geoRSS is syria.intelmap.com, that is a collection of more lively feeds.