RSS and Google Ranking

[Ride45]

Has anyone had any positive or negative results with using *on topic* RSS feeds on their site with measrable results for their rank in Google? My understanding is that Google likes fresh content as well as information services, but can this be accomplished with RSS news feeds that contain snippets of info and outbound links to sites with relevant articles on your site's subject matter?

Does a large archive of outbound links generated from RSS feeds have a negative impact on PR? on SERP?

I have seen one competitive site to ours introduce the service on their home page (with an archive as well) and since their ranking has shot up from #12 to #4 (over a 1 month period) . Their rank jump may be the result of other factors of course (i.e. oodles of inbound links), but the timing seems somewhat coindencental with the introduction of the News service.

Any thoughts? Insight? Expreience?

Thanks