An article in D-Lib Magazine on The Role of RSS in Science Publishing: Syndication and Annotation on the Web:

RSS is increasingly being deployed within science publishing, and the reasons for this are manifold. RSS presents a very simple XML structure for packaging news titles and links, and delivering them down to user desktops and handhelds. Associated as it is with the burgeoning new technologies of blogs and wikis, RSS has received a significant impetus to growth. There is already a general public awareness of RSS, and it is being widely implemented. There is also growing support from browser vendors, and a number of the common browsers now have some degree of built-in RSS functionality. Indeed, it is becoming almost ubiquitous [n17]. It provides a ready B2C channel and can also be used in simpler B2B contexts.

...via Many2Many