RSS isn’t Dead… My comment
RSS isn’t Dead Just Ask Executives – ReadWriteEnterprise.
I don’t know if those who have proclaimed that RSS is… you know.. the D word… actually believe it to the core or if they just wanted to push buttons with tongue in cheek.
Or if they just irresponsibly use “RSS” as an umbrella term for labeling the opposition to the more, faster, smarter, better hype that is going on related to real-time web/push-button web etc. It’s like so many other things where people feel the need to have a black&white issue to pound on. The notion that something must fall for something else to rise.
Childish, really.Here are some perspectives…
Many people were not ready for adding RSS Readers to live along-side with their “Email”. With the exception of joining mailing lists, a typical person does nto concern themselves with the idea of subscribing in order to get content. And despite the ease in which this subscribing process is done (auto-discovery, orange buttons, copy/paste a url, pre-populating feeds, one-click subscribe options in the software etc etc), these few extra steps and the fact that their is another interface for managing an “inbox” deterred many from full adopting content syndication via RSS. Email software that incorporated an RSS Reader (ie. Apple’s mail.app) helps but it’s still added complexity.
Many people just find it simpler to rely on a few webpages (which prob use RSS).But RSS is more than this idea of Reader software.
RSS made it easy to let one website add content from another website. So it’s usefulness was not solely for consumption by individual users but also to spread content across the web.
RSS is used by search engines for improved content discovery and therefor, improved SEO. The new breed of search engines heavily use RSS feeds to parse rich multimedia content and output to a users search results. That was some of the motivation behind new namespaces such as “Media RSS” driven by Yahoo! in 2004. And anyone adept in Search Engine Optimization knows that submitting a Media RSS feed to search engines is a standard and crucial step. After all, it’s well-formed machine-readable content.
Media RSS also bleeds into the world of audio and video syndication/agregation (commonly referred to as podcasting). Take a look at the data inside my blip.tv RSS feed: http://sull.blip.tv/rss
That’s some rich metadata.
Does twitter offer that? No and it was never intended to. But twitter will evolve and its feasible that it will eventually resemble RSS more as it becomes realized that metadata and machine-readable formats are fundamental requirements that add value.
RSS is also commonly used to run multimedia presentation software such as Flash audio and video players. Adobe’s own AMP (Adobe Media Player) uses RSS and other XML flavors to load playlists, social connections, advertising, branding and UI elements. Their are other examples of RSS being in the mix for these types of uses as well.
RSS is often used as part of web application APIs. One service can make use of another service’s RSS feed and include the content and important links or widgets into it’s interface. These web service mashups thrive and are part of the web culture today. RSS is not the only format used but it is a common and simple format to allow for easy cross-domain content sharing.
RSS is also used for alerts, notifications, data backups, filesharing and short messaging.
RSS is so pervasive that many people don’t see it or know its part of whatever it is that they are looking at. And that’s the way it should be for most people.
So where is the failure, exactly? Mostly, you could blame software for aggregating RSS feeds. It was setup to mimic email. That made sense since you did not want to create an nusual experience for people to consume this content. The email experience is the most common of all. But that also allows for the vulnerability of feeling overwhelmed with “unread items” and managing all the content. So, more “view modes” are important…. especially the “river of news” mode that let’s you casually skim headlines. There are other designs that work too. Inevitably, a user has unique preferences and they should be allowed to easily create those view modes that work for them.
Google Reader has evolved a lot this year. Though I still think it’s a clunky bloated confusing experience… it is at least more interesting to me. I can see it continuing to evolve to the point where it becomes more inline as a direct competitor to Facebook. But they need a new UI or like I said, multiple view modes.
Even with Google Reader’s shortcomings and attributing those to the whole RSS is …. you know… the D word…. it’s foolish, it’s rhetoric. it’s getting drunk on the real-time buzz which is like… the new drug of choice.
So enough of this. If their is a concern about the image of RSS (very few of us geeks would really care), then just post intelligent articles mentioning RSS where applicable so people learn an understand it more. I don’t think we need to grab hold of the drama headlining of this is dead that is dead this is the future and that is old news etc etc.
Stuff like RSS is not Fashion. It’s cold hard tech.
This debate is a fabrication based on personalities who happen to have reach and some could argue… influence.Once a Faster RSS is demonstrated (rssCloud, pubsubhubbub etc), everthing else will be moot, anyway.
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