Main points to know about RSS Aggregators

Information, which everyone should know about 
RSS Aggregators:

1) RSS is an acronym for Really Simple Syndication and Rich Site Summary. RSS is an XML-based format for content distribution.

2) An RSS feed is a set of instructions residing on the computer server of a Web site, which is given upon request to a subscriber’s RSS reader, or aggregator. The feed tells the reader when new material — such as a news article, a blog posting, or an audio or a video clip — has been published on the Web site.

3) Feed Reader or News Aggregator software allows you to grab the RSS feeds from various sites and display them for you to read and use. Some popular feed readers include Amphetadesk (Windows, Linux, Mac), FeedReader (Windows), and NewsGator (Windows - integrates with Outlook). There are also a number of web-based feed readers available. My Yahoo, Bloglines, and Google Reader are popular web-based feed readers.  

4) Google Reader is a Web-based aggregator, capable of reading Atom and RSS feeds online or offline. It was released by Google on October 7, 2005 through Google Labs. 

5) Websites summarize content in an RSS feed. Visitors download an RSS readers. There are generally two different types of RSS readers. The first kind of feed reader is a self contained program, the second kind of feed reader use a web browser. Visitors select the content and summaries they wish to view in a news aggregator or RSS reader. Each time the feed is updated the content being viewed in the RSS reader indicates that there is new content.

6) Atom being a newer format than RSS, not all aggregators are capable (as of February 2004) of reading Atom feeds. If you enjoy using an aggregator that doesn’t understand Atom, but you still want to read websites that syndicate in Atom but not RSS, you can use a tool that converts Atom feeds into RSS feeds, such as Atom2RSS, by 2RSS.