Christina Wodtke says she is knowingly stirring the pot with her post, Is RSS a bad idea?
- The vast majority of folks can’t use itI think some of the initial items on her list are due to low adoption, but many of her points can be related to just about any new technology. I remember when I first started on USENET back in the early 90's. Yes, the vast majority of people didn't use it, once I subscriber to a dozen groups I ignored some of them, etc....but there was good content and community there. However USENET is now dead for the most part....so perhaps that's not the best analogy :-)
- A large majority of those who can, set it up then ignore it
- It doesn’t filter, it just puts all the crap in one place
- It kills a content provider’s ability to survive, if they provide full feeds
- It annoys customers if it only provides teasers
- Adding feeds is typically a painful, annoying process, even with myyahoo, feedburner, etc
Visitor Comments
The first three points, you could have prob. said about email when it was first becoming popular.
Posted by: Chris | December 4, 2006 11:17 AM
Christina has a point, but I think it was a better point six months, a year, 18 months ago. People are growing far more aware of blogs and sources of feeds, and the browsers are moving right smartly to integrating RSS. Pretty soon, no one will think twice.
Part of the problem is that we early adopters talk about "RSS," which the mainstream doesn't understand. Say "subscription" and everyone gets it.
Shel Holtz has a great line when asked about RSS. He basically says "don't worry about it", then asks the room "How many of you use SMTP?" And then asks "How many of you use email?" Point made.
Posted by: Allan Jenkins | December 4, 2006 1:43 PM
Didn't USENET morph into Google Groups? Methinks it didn't die; it just got assimilated.
Posted by: Barry | December 4, 2006 2:43 PM
Barry: Perhaps not dead, but un-used?
Posted by: Josh Hallett | December 4, 2006 3:18 PM