An RSS reader is software that subscribes to RSS or Atom feeds — structured publication formats produced by blogs, news sites, and podcasts — and presents new entries to the reader in chronological or relevance-ranked order.
Why it matters
RSS as a publishing format is older than the social web (1999), and it persists because it's the only standardised, decentralised way for publishers to reach subscribers. Google Reader's death in 2013 thinned the category but didn't kill it: Feedly, Inoreader, Reeder, NetNewsWire, and now AI-augmented variants (Readwise Reader, Pith) all serve current users.
The modern RSS reader's pitch is *ranked feed* — not all feeds matter equally on any given day. Ranking by relevance to the user's interests beats raw chronology for high-volume readers.
How Pith relates
Pith's RSS subscriptions feed into the inbox with three tabs: For You (high-relevance), Trending (mid), Everything (raw). Relevance is computed against your interest profile + bookmark history. See the RSS feature.
See also
Last reviewed: 10 May 2026 · Licensed CC BY 4.0 · cite freely with attribution to Pith.