At Supernova, the panel about syndication appears to be smart: Paul Boutin (Wired magazine), Scott Rosenberg (Salon.com), Tim Bray (Sun Microsystems) and Kevin Marks sat in for David Sifry (Technorati). Excerpts from session notes I've read:

Boutin: Most of people know about syndication as a way to read 10, 20, 30, maybe hundreds of blogs a day. I wanted to explore some of the other uses out there.(...) aggregated feeds are a way to mix the best of the Web with the best of email.

Kevin Marks: As the universe of syndicated content grows, there will be more interesting uses there. By tracking the connections between feeds, we can identify who the experts in a field are. Syndication isn't limited to publication; it's a way of saying, "Here's something new."

Rosenberg: I'm not hugely optimistic about a world in which every corporation has a universe of bloggers in it. The software industry is unique. Software developers are a great group to have blogging because they feel empowered and can go work somewhere else. Most organizations don't have that luxury, and most employees will feel cowed about saying what they really think. (...) some people are starting to put ads in their RSS feeds. As that happens, it might be far less attractive. (...) My fear is that it's been nine years publishing on the Web, and today, we see some people in the advertising world begin to understand the medium of the Web. The concepts are very slow to filter through that universe. Advertising moves really slowly. They don't go to technology conferences.