There are a number of specialized subjects I like to follow -- the Redskins, Java hacking, cheap Amtrak tickets -- and after using each for quite some time I've found a Google alert tends to wipe the floor with RSS when it comes to identifying content. Neither is a superset of the other when it comes capturing all the new information in which I'd be interested on each topic, but the alerts seem to have a much higher 'ROI'. Of coures alerts can be just as specific as I want, which helps a heck of a lot.

Now I understand that RSS's lacks are, in part, my fault for not adding the best sources, but I think that's the issue. It's interesting to me that I still would prefer to have a third party search out what's important to me rather than perform the search myself, even of 'known' sites. This is not completely unlike the nation used to do with, say, television networks. It's a new paradigm, but not wholly so.