Please subscribe via RSS! (Ironic enough for you?)
Given some of the reactions out there on the blog-o-sphere, I thought I would clarify a few points regarding my post on RSS.
1) When I say “RIP RSS” or anything like it, I am being totally 100% tongue-in-cheek. I would not sanely call a technology that is deployed on nearly every website on earth (proudly including this one!!!) dead without employing large doses of humor and irony.
2) My larger point is that given how widely deployed RSS is on the publisher front, I believe it still has very low awareness on the consumer front, especially among non-technical folks. The folks I am referring to check email, have Facebook accounts, use Google and, by the way, are the majority of internet users. However, unlike you and me, they’ve never read Slashdot, don’t know what PHP is and didn’t have to hack their WINSOCK.DLL to get Mosiac or Netscape working with AOL back in the day. Go out and see for yourself. Ask a bunch of folks who are not technical and have jobs that are not in tech, ages 30-60, what RSS is and whether or not they regularly use it. Do the same for email. Compare and contrast. Is that a high bar? Yes, but I believe RSS has that sort of potential which is why its low awareness frustrates me.
3) I am an avid RSS user. I need RSS to keep on top of things (mostly Achewood, Kottke.org, HackerNews and DF). I have no less than SIX paid and free RSS clients and utilities on my computer, iPhone and iPad. But the fact that I need to email my blog updates to my family and friends is a sign that something has failed. However, I might have misspoken. Perhaps it’s not RSS’ fault. Maybe the problem is that the world has never seen an easy to use, consumer friendly and viral RSS reader and link sharing client. As my commenter KidMercury pointed out, RSS is great at being a backend technology, so maybe the issue is that no one has taken RSS to the next level as a consumer-facing technology.
4) It’s all about potential. The use case for RSS is so simple, ubiquitous and awesome that nearly every one I know needs it from ubergeek Unix admin to luddite. So how should we judge whether or not RSS is being as successful as it should be? I think it should be almost as ubiquitous as email or at least close to it (30%-50%?). with daily usage.
5) You also need to understand where this blog is coming from. I should probably rename this blog “In Defense of Normals.” All of my posts try to look at things from a decidedly non-geeky POV despite being a geek myself. One commenter asked if I also consider Linux a failed technology. Using the same criteria I used for my post on RSS, the answer is “No, Linux is not a failed technology insofar as it wasn’t meant to be a consumer tech, but Linux & Unix on the Desktop (ie in Wal-Mart) have been disasters precisely because they were meant for consumers.” But consider OS X which is kinda like a skin for Unix. Now, that has been a success.
You might think of it this way: RSS has been a huge win on the backend (kinda like Linux & Unix on servers and workstations, etc.) but has failed to capture the public’s attention and imagination (kinda like Linux & Unix on the Desktop) as much as I think it should / has the potential to. What I really want is something brave and new. I want an RSS client that, like OS X, takes an awesome underlying technology and makes it consumer friendly.
#1 by kidmercury on July 13, 2010 - 3:07 pm
thanks for the link! rare is the person brave enough to link to my site, so give yourself a pat on the back for having some courage. :) also, i saw that you are interested in fighting cancer — have you seen http://worldwithoutcancer.org.uk/, i always advocate laetrile as a true cure for cancer, suppressed by big pharma, like a few other cancer cures, and many disease cures in general. anyway, just wanted to share that based on your interest in cancer, in case you were not familiar, and for other readers who may not be familiar as well.
on the subject of RSS, in terms of normal people (i.e. non-tech folks), the issue i've always encountered is why don't i just subscribe by email? to which i've never found a good response. i consume too many RSS feeds for email, but back when i was using less, i preferred email subscriptions. which may be another insight to gain — perhaps RSS readers are best for infogeeks consuming lots of media.
i think a more disruptive element is needed to appeal to regular people — perhaps an app built on top of RSS, or one that leverages RSS in a unique way. in particular, i think socializing the news is still something that isn't done very well, and that RSS could help out with. twitter and facebook are doing this to a certain extent; in particular i know some regular people who use twitter as a news source, and some of my regular friends share many links on facebook. there are copyright issues here, even though i've never understood how it is really that different than how google is profiting off google reader. personally, i'd like to see a new content management system for blogs — one that would allow you to import the RSS feeds you subscribe to, so that you can discuss the news with your readers on your turf, moderating the environment as you see fit.
in any event, i still think we're pretty early in the RSS game, and that in due time you may get the new app you are looking for.
#2 by Thomas Loverro on July 13, 2010 - 3:12 pm
Agreed re: email being great for sharing but there being potential for something better for news/URL sharing to come along perhaps leveraging RSS. I happen to be Beta testing something something that I think has that potential.