Technosailor - Latest Comments in The Problem with RSS

Re: The Problem with RSS

Robert Irizarry — Sun, 15 Jul 2007 14:31:02 -0000

I can't agree more with your observations on RSS and the masses. Outside of the technically savvy, RSS is generally a mystery. As a blogger, I constantly come across articles about the importance of increasing RSS subscriptions but most of the blogs talking this up are about technology, SEO, marketing, etc. Fortunately, I'm an IT person so I understand. However, my guitar blog and countless other blogs, have nothing to do with these subjects and typically don't attract folks who are knowledgeable about technologies like RSS. Personally, I think the divide is greater than many realize...

Re: The Problem with RSS

Mark Evans — Sun, 15 Jul 2007 13:25:02 -0000

Aaron,
You should check out AideRSS.com - an interesting new RSS tool.

Re: The Problem with RSS

Vinnie — Sat, 14 Jul 2007 15:24:13 -0000

RSS needs a friendlier name and a good reader app. Right now it mostly gets lumped in with web browsers and mail clients and I'm not sure either of those approaches are really right. Why should I subscribe to a feed in firefox for example when I can just bookmark the site and check back?

I think desktop-level integration (Dashboard, Vista sidebar etc) is a good way to go for RSS. I know I'd visit more sites if a growl notification popped up as feeds updated for example (but do it in something that's not a separate download, so any average joe can do it easily and often).

Re: The Problem with RSS

Michael Hampton — Fri, 13 Jul 2007 22:57:46 -0000

If you want one possible solution, go download and install Google Desktop. Then go about your day for a while. Later, check back on it, and you will find it has subscribed itself to all the RSS feeds it could find while you were browsing and is now showing you headlines from those sites.

Re: The Problem with RSS

kevin — Fri, 13 Jul 2007 19:49:39 -0000

This has been the TOUGHEST transition for me to move my readership from myspace to my website. RSS is something totally foreign to them, which makes me have to post a link every single day in my myspace blog to my website because at least 2000 people get all confused when you bring up RSS.

I started using the e-mail subscription function through feedburner to compliment the feed and people have responded well to that but I might as well be speaking in Spanish when I say RSS.

I hope the bridge is gapped, I just wonder how it can be done.

Re: The Problem with RSS

MJ Ray — Fri, 13 Jul 2007 11:31:25 -0000

I've been calling it "Live Bookmarking" more and more recently, after the name it's given by Firefox-based browsers. I think one of the main barriers is the terrible support in MSIE for it, so there's two ways around it: persuade people to install other browsers; wait for MS to wake up.

Re: The Problem with RSS

Rory — Fri, 13 Jul 2007 06:25:45 -0000

I agree that RSS is a surprisingly difficult concept to explain to the general public. The fact that it has to be "explained" at all is a barrier. The mere mention of RSS causes eyes to glaze over.

Wouldn't the answer be to integrate RSS with bookmarking or favouriting.

People using the internet generally know how to bookmark a site. Perhaps the very act of bookmarking/favouriting a site could incorporate notification of updates/new content. There could be the option of having your browser start page be a list of updates that every bookmarked site has made over the past 24 hrs (or however long). Or a pop-up when the browser is fired up. A system which happened automatically so that nothing would need to be explained.

If this is a remarkable new idea that garners multi-millions of revenue, then I at least want a mention!