I had guessed that when one follows a user, they will get an alert of some sort when that user posts. There are a handful of occaisional writers here at ET whose content I'd like to see every so often when I log in, rather than having to run a lot of specific searches or browse through the forums. It appears that when someone I follow has posted several days before I next log in I don't get any notification.
Hover over your username at the top right of the page and click on the link that says "Your News Feed". That page represents all the recent activity from the users you follow.