Radio UserLand, RSS, Weblog Tools and Design
Saturday, March 13, 2004RSS Adoption Rate Is Opportunity, Not Problem
The RSS adoption rate is not a problem, but a classic opportunity. Similar to the digital divide hysteria of a few years ago, there is always a difference of opinion regarding adoption rate. After multiple attempts to interest work colleagues in RSS over the last 18 months, I recently decided to try again. Opportunity, Not Problem. Onward!
So, why is adoption so low? What are the barriers that this industry must solve. [Scobleizer: Microsoft Geek Blogger] Scoble points to deficiencies in RSS adoption. Answering the UserLand phone these days, I get a good feel for the issues users have and I can point to some significant awareness issues. One person had been using Radio as a blogging tool and simply didn't know it had a built in RSS aggregator. The idea of having the information flow to you as its published is a massive mental shift for most people as is the idea of being able to preselect (and deselect) those sources as you desire. It does take some getting acquainted as this level of control can be uncomfortable for some ;')
I generally hear three responses:
- aaaa-haaaa, WOW, I didn't know you could do THAT !!!
- Oh My God -- this is going to change the world -- it just kills email
- I need to rest, I am so overwhelmed
In my view, adoption has only just started and the tools still have a pretty crude feel. We have an ON-OFF switch for feeds, but its always at full volume. One thing I need is a volume control - I don't want to turn it off, I just want to turn it down a bit sometimes and then be able to turn it back up, depending on what's there. Simple stuff.
[Scott Young's Radio Weblog]
Why RSS Is Better Than Email
Internally at Microsoft I've been getting a ton of questions about RSS. I figure I'd just post my emails here too so you can see why I like RSS so much.
The first one is what is better about RSS than email.
1) RSS is easier to have search bots visit.
2) RSS is easier to link to (at least if it also spits out an HTML page, like all weblogging software does).
3) RSS won't get mixed in with other email (SPAM, other DL traffic, and other email types). I've been looking at Microsoft employees inboxes, and many people here don't setup rules to filter their email into separate buckets.
4) RSS is easier to subscribe and unsubscribe from.
5) RSS doesn't use up any of my Outlook rules spaces (some of my coworkers have so many rules that they can't add anymore).
6) RSS is usable not just in an email client (Bloglines, other weblogs, even other Sharepoint sites can subscribe and aggregate it).
[Scobleizer: Microsoft Geek Blogger]
Why RSS Is More Productive Than Web
Why RSS is more productive than Web.
I've written about this one before, but thought it might add something to the mix. It's my ideas on why RSS is better than reading in the Web browser.
My goal is to use IE (or any browser, really) as little as possible? Why? Because it is FAR LESS productive to read information in a browser than it is in a news aggregator. Keep in mind, I'm watching 1353 feeds right now. Every night I read all my feeds. That'd be impossible to do in a browser. Here's why:
1) It is 10 times more productive to read RSS than HTML. If you want to read, in a browser, all 1353 of my information sources, which include not only blogs, but MSDN, and BBC, and New York Times, you'd need to visit every single one of those every 24 hours to see if they posted something new. But I DO NOT NEED TO DO THAT. Instead, I only need to look at the sites that have actually posted something. In the past 24 hours only 189 feeds have actually posted something. So, right there I'm 10 times more productive than you are!
2) No wait for browser loading. The average weblog takes 10 to 15 seconds to get to a readable state in the browser. But, my RSS feeds are downloaded ahead of time for me, and when I click on them they load instantly. 15x1353=20295 seconds/60=338.25 minutes/60=5.6375 hours. Am I doing the math right here? If you wanted to pull up 1353 weblogs/websites in your browser you'd be waiting 5.675 hours just to have them load?
3) No looking for "what's new." When you visit a site like CNET you need to do a lot of mental work to see what was different from yesterday when you read the site. In NewsGator new things are bold. I don't need to do any work and I don't need to pay any attention to old things.
4) No distractions. If you do eyetrak research you'll see that the average human eye spends a lot of time looking at blinking stuff and color stuff (er, advertising on a page and design on a page). In RSS, I only get the content. That means that I can read that content far faster than you can and provably so.
5) Same font for easier reading. Because all RSS is presented in the same font (unless the feed producer is an idiot), your eye can read more without getting tired (imagine if USA Today ran each story in a different font, how hard would that be to read?).
[Scobleizer: Microsoft Geek Blogger]