I just got an email from American Express inviting me to sign up for their RSS beta test program. Here's how they define RSS in the second paragraph of the email:

RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication. It allows you to choose the content that matters most to you, like company news, updates, newsletters, announcements, press releases, and special offers, and have it conveniently stored in one place. With RSS, it's easy to get control over the information you want and read it at your leisure.

If you click on the link your taken to a 10 question survey. If you fill it out you get the RSS feeds. They failed to include RSS AutoDiscovery on the page with the feeds.

So I would assume most American Express card holders are in the majority that don't understand RSS yet. So what can non-tech companies do better when promoting RSS feeds:

• Provide a good definition of RSS
• If I have never used RSS before, help me get started (this is key for a company like American Express)
• Use RSS AutoDiscovery

Though I have to give them credit for offering it to begin with, and also atempting to define RSS.