building a following
 

I'm building a stories site.
I want to keep in touch with the visitors/readers, in a way that every time a new story is added to site - they will be notified and re-visit in order to read it.

the question is what method should I use to keep this touch.

the obvious first option was a mailing list. (the email as the connection)
the problem with a mailing list is that today most people don't like to give their email address due to fear of spam (or that the email will be sold to spammers)

the other option I thought about is to use RSS feed. (the rss feed as the connection)
that way no email is needed, only an rss reader like the one google has, or yahoo, msn or aol (yes they all have an online solution for reading rss) or of course a mail client like outlook can be used.
the down side of the rss feed option is most users don't even know what it is, let alone how to add it to their mail client or google/msn/yahoo/aol account.
the second down side of the rss feed is that a visitor may not have a google or msn or yahoo or aol account (let's say he has a different email account) and cannot use an online rss feed reading solution, and doesn't use a mail client like outlook. - in that case I lost him.

the third option is to use both methods. (giving the user the option to either enter his email for the mailing list and/or use the rss feed).

is there a fourth option I didn't think of?