i like to use RSS, its great for news
i use the
desktopsidebar.com and i added news from all places including BBC News of my area
its very handy, i did add WWFs RSS feed but it didnt update enought to work well, and i ended up sticking with Active Topics, same with one of my websites.
but they're great for news sites, or sites that you dont visit often (they mostly work on sites that have a slower change rate than a forum i find)
Desktop Sidebar is great, as you can have all sorts of information, like upcoming events from Outlook (which is handy) add Email Accounts to it, have a nice big ass clock, and i also got Motherboard Monitor - which works WITH Desktop Sidebar, to give you info like Ram usage, CPU usage, cpu temp and case temp - it can also tell you stuff like fan speed (but doesnt work for me)
i dont think id use RSS much if it was a separate program displaying them as id never load it up, its just that the desktop sidebar is always their, so if something catchs my eye, i click on it