As the Decade Closes, Has RSS Faded Too?
The decade is coming to an end. And with it, so has the era of feeds too faded - though you can argue it never got off the ground. Even with real-time technologies like pubsubhubbub, RSS today feels slow and it's clear its best days are behind it. Feed reading, like blogging, feels "very 2005." I wasn't convinced until recently, however.
Until a few weeks ago, this die-hard techie was clinging to Google Reader like a disco maniac might his eight-tracks. I felt like the last hold out; the guy still dancing to the Bee Gees when everyone else had gone punk - and maybe I was.
Now, however, slowly but surely I am moving more of my consumption out of RSS and into the Twitter stream. Twitter, not blogs, long ago became the focal point for reading and conversing around news for many. So it's natural, as this report on Read Write Web indicates, that most of us who were even using RSS readers to begin with have ditched them and have moved to tracking news in the stream instead. And we're not alone. According to Forrester, eight percent of US online adults post and read updates on Twitter at least monthly.
Personally, this is something I resisted for three reasons: a) I like full text feeds, b) there was a lack of organization/lists and c) Twitter remains very dependent on "now," making saving and digesting information at a later date in a Tivo-like way all the more difficult. That all changed with the advent of Twitter lists.
Nowadays I am bringing it all into Gmail, which other than my corporate email account is my sole productivity and social Ginsu Knife. I already publish to my Posterous-powered lifestream site via email. Couple that with Twitgether, a full-blown real-time Gmail Twitter client, NutshellMail for tracking social network interactions like replies and Listimonkey to bring me Twitter lists every hour via email (pictured above), my Google Reader is starting to get lonely.
How about you? Are there any die-hard RSS users out there who have not succumb to the stream?
Comments 71 Comments
Reader is still my go to -- even if I see posts in my Reader that I've already read via Twitter.
Plus with twitter blocked at the office, greader is the only way to "keep up" with stuff during breaks at work.
Would I be excited to launch "yet another RSS reader" to compete with Google? Absolutely not. But that doesn't mean the market is fading. It's just more mature than the Twitter app market, which is still figuring which way is up.
I am waiting for all those people who can't wait for RSS to die to turn off their feeds. They can join those bloggers who say blogging is dying and shut down their blogs. More opportunity for those of us who continue to do things the right way.
Maybe what you really mean is that selling the unfiltered firehose of the web's content to end users is no longer of value to the marketing profession?
Just a thought.
Give Snackr a try. Might change your mind about RSS. Who know a stockticker from the 1920's could be so useful when paired with RSS?
It's at Snackr.net
I use google reader every day, and the best thing about is that I can read stuff on my computer, on my laptop, on my phone, and not forget what i've read or get overwhelmed by all the bitly redirects and unknown links.
And if I really want to know what's hot I just go to the popular items feed and ta-da! :D
I'm still surprised though that more people haven't got the habit of using something like this but I guess it's not compatible with everyone's usage of the net. If only they knew the advantages and time saving it could bring them.
And a really big plus for me: all text looks the same; no fancy typography, no white text on a black background, none of that crap.
Now just give me a tablet I can carry around in my bag and RSS is here to stay...
I think Twitter, real-time, the "Stream" promotes a short attention span, and is way too interruptive. I use Twitter (a bit), and check-in periodically, but I don't think that's an appropriate single source for news/info unless your workflow can handle constant input.
And most people's workflow can't. Batch processing is a much more efficient way of doing things. You wouldn't try washing your laundry in real time as it gets dirty, would you? Let it pile up and do once a week.
"Oh yes, but then you're behind. I have to keep up to stay competitive!" Sure you do. What, are you day trading? This is a form of narcissism: the world needs me every minute; and a form of self-brokenness: I need the world every moment.
It's inefficient, it's self-centered, it's mostly a distraction from getting work done.
And remember- outside of a fairly small group of gurus (and a larger group of poseurs), Social Media, Twitter, the Stream, etc, is just a tool to help people accomplish other things, not THE THING people are trying to accomplish.
Unless I'm missing some new tools, I'm sticking with Google Reader all the way. Although I must say I am becoming a huge fan of LazyFeed.
Also, an RSS reader enables me to read full feeds directly instead of having to click to follow a shortened link. I don't like to trust shortened links. Twitter, please make them no longer necessary!
It still baffles me why the internet elite are trying to kill it.
So while a Web based on an instantaneous feedback loop is just starting to take off, I think that rapid injection of information into our (sub)conscious will have to be based on brevity. We simply can't process mass amounts of input in realtime.
Decentralization is the main reason why I say so, when Twitter is down you can't consume any tweets.
RSS being an open standard won't suffer from the same issues.
This is the same as people saying that OpenID was going to loose to Facebook Connect, or that Facebook mail would replace e-mail.
The issue here I feel is that RSS wasn't marketed like a product, support for RSS is widespread but no one did anything to push it to the average consumers.
But I think that's bound to change with growing extensions like PubSubHubBub, RSSCloud and Salmon I think it's potential will get closer to realization (especially Salmon which might make RSS a Twitter competitor on it's own).
I went away from Google Reader and was using Twitter but now I'm back. Twitter works when I am online watching the streams go by, otherwise with Google Reader's recent updates I think the platform suits my reading style better.
To me, Google Reader is easy, updates quickly, and I can get articles I want at a later date - in that manner in feels like a magazine subscription.
Twitter - when I want news on the spot, there isn't anything better - in that manner Twitter is like having CNN/FoxNews playing in the background.
I don't think RSS is dead. I think people will be coming back to it.
Don't get me wrong I have the utmost respect for what you do. Just tired of hearing all the negative news about RSS as of late.
That's why we look to people like yourself. I've always felt it's people like yourself to educate and show people the powerful tools of the internet. Like RSS readers.
Instead of telling us, your readers that you notice that RSS readers have faded off, why not show why you believe they are still powerful and can add benefit to any users online experience?
Although I love the ability to post articles to Twitter. I think it's easy to overlook a worthy article based on the 140 character limit. That's a different story in Google Reader. I noticed your headline, image, and then caught a few words in your post. That's what prompted me to your site and engage in this conversation.
That would have never have happened if I were to rely solely on Twitter. I honestly feel that Twitter demands a solid RSS reader to compliment the overall experience.
With too many interests I always fall into the trap of picking something up and filling out my Reader with the best feeds so that I can keep up and dive into a field.... But then I usually fall out of an interest just as quickly. If I had all that information in my stream or coming to me through email I would get really annoyed at all the information I didn't want.
I still have a bunch of Reader folders set up for art & design, technology, blogs, social media, web analytics, corporate feeds, and even though they haven't been touched in 3 months I like having them there when it comes time for me to pick them up again. Out of sight and out of mind.
Past tense, eh?
Twitter, while it gets a lot of news coverage, is hardly more mainstream than RSS readers. You can't keep assuming that your insular world of Social Media geeks IS the world.
RSS (or rather, reading blogs in an RSS reader) didn't "take off" because the vast majority of people in this country don't care to subscribe to a bunch of blogs and read them regularly. This is still not normal behavior for people, even though it's incredibly valuable. I am still, every day, evangelizing RSS readers (Google, of course) to my (non-tech) small business clients, because the simple act of turning one on and paying attention puts them ahead of the majority of people in their field.
Twitter probably won't become mainstream, either. Those of us who use it get a lot of value out of it, but the rest of the world is content to use their outdated version of Internet Explorer to in order to do what the internet was really built for:
-porn
-pictures of grandchildren
-pictures of cats
-buying crap
Maybe it's a case where I just need more exposure in your online workflow to see the benefits that your getting now vs. a dedicated RSS reader.
I like Twitter for a quick reaction, a note , a reference to an article, clip. image , ... I like Twitter for breaking news too because it is real-time. For other purposes I don't get its usefulness. About RSS I agree with what most people just said. However, none of them are perfect. Maybe a change in one of the following forms is needed.
1- Twitter is a gigantic pool of information and I guess stays the same way. It is ideal if an application extracts the information from Twitter and let us to filter that information extensively and presenting us with not just 140 characters but with full article of the related link, omitting redundant links ,... A RSS reader based on Twitter which I think is practical. (I may try to build one with Yahoo pipes).
2- RSS readers are good and useful but it would be much better if we could use Twitter information inside RSS reader and as I said with extensive filtering and full article.
However, until now we have had the least control over information overflow ( in both platforms) and the right tool is yet to be built.
I see a bright future for RSS
Even Twitter is in fact bundled streams. Let's see what the future brings.
It's a service combining advantages of Twitter and RSS, by automatically aggregating links posted by your friends on Twitter, de-duplicating them and sorting them by the number of references on Twitter.
It's a great service to catch-up with important news when you can't follow your Twitter stream for a while.
The vast majority of us can not spend our entire day watching "the stream." I paint houses for a living. How on earth would I keep up to date if I had to rely on twitter? I need my reading to be in a more static form, but still somewhat intigrated with my twitter and facebook streams, and Greader fits that bill near perfectly. It seems to me that if Facebook really wanted to shake things up, they would build an RSS reader like Google's, then integrate it as a Tab on the facebook page, same with email.
Sometimes you and Scoble and others need to think outside of your very small bubble. I know that you've made it your job to be on the leading edge of trends, but some times I think that you lose sight of how all these trends will or (more likely not) be embraced by the masses, not just a select few.
They overlap somewhat in that they're both forms of communication, but they are still clearly two different things. You wouldn't want your bank to deal with you strictly through an instant messenger, and you wouldn't want important documents sent to you from work solely through an internet messenger. Just like you wouldn't want to find out your mother's been in an accident, through a text message rather than a phone call.
The same thing applies when it comes to consuming information through the internet. Chalk me up as another of the many people who mentioned that they either missed or didn't notice this post through twitter, even though I'm following you, and only saw it through GReader. Twitter's great at what it is, and I use it on a daily basis, but it just doesn't do for me what a feed reader does.
Every morning I wake up and skim through the folders I follow most closely on GReader before work. If something interests me but I don't have time for it at the moment, I have multiple options at my disposal. If it's something I want to read soon, I can keep it unread until later on in the day, or when I get off work. If it's something that I want to look deeper into over the weekend or months down the line, I can star it and know that it's there when I'm ready for it.
If I get something that I think my friends would enjoy, I can share it, and add a comment if I want, and when they comment back a conversation forms. If it's something I really want to share, I can click Send To and choose Facebook, and all my friends will get it there as well. If I only want to share it with one or a few people, I can tag it with their name and it shows up in their folder, which they've also subscribed through RSS.
I have folders on GReader of things I don't follow all the time, but are reliably sitting there accumulating until I do, and I can catch myself up. For instance, I'm not a graphic designer, but I find myself needing to do it from time to time. In those cases, not only do I have a folder in my reader collecting tools, tutorials, articles and so on at my disposal, but I have everything that I've ever starred on the subject.
Another example is that I primarily use my macbook for my day to day computing, but I also have a desktop computer and a media center running linux... on those times when I want to play around in linux, I have dozens of feeds on linux that I can look through. I can catch up on all the latest software that's come out, what's going on with the next update to KDE or when the next Linux Mint beta is available, and on and on.
Personally, I have tens of thousands of articles saved over the years in GReader, that I have access to go back and look at whenever I feel the need. At any point, I can search my starred items for "photoshop" for instance, and have access to every article I have saved in GReader since the moment it came out. Just like I can search in Gmail for any email I've received over the years.
Twitter's great for hearing about what's going on as it's happening, or to see what's up with people I'm interested in, but it just doesn't do what a feed reader can. I mainly use twitter on my phone, in between the times I use GReader. Or when something like a UFC event, a Blazer game, an awards show, or the season finale of Dexter is going on, I can see what people are saying about it as it's happening. Even when I'm at my computer, I find myself checking twitter on my iphone, not through an app on my computer.
I mean, sure.... technically you *can* do all or most of these things I mentioned without the use of a feed reader, but why would you? It's just not as simple, intuitive, or convenient... and it takes far too much work.
I understand that in your line of work, and the tech-entrenched world you live in, that twitter is probably used by more people than not.
Personally though, I know of very few people who use twitter in my actual day to day world. And I'm in my twenties, work at a company where we are all on computers 95% of the time we're at work, and have a fairly active social life too. You would think this is the demographic that would be most likely to use twitter, outside of extremely "hardcore" tech-savvy people like those who would read this blog.
To be honest, I know more people who still have an active Myspace account, than I do people who use twitter. The people I interact with primarily spend their time on Facebook/Myspace or IM. They may watch some videos, download music, and do the occasional shopping, that's about it. If something peaks their interest, they'll google it and be done with it. Outside of that, they aren't following blogs, they aren't following trends, and they definitely aren't "tweeting".
Twitter is actually far more limited in scope than a feed reader in the long run, it's just the "new" thing, so it gets more talked about. The same people (read: us) that are willing to take the time to learn and use a feed reader, are the people that are willing to spend time following "the stream". They have a Facebook status that lets them do the same thing in their eyes, but only with the people they're concerned with. And anyone who has a twitter account, has a Facebook account.
Twitter is for celebs/athletes/narcissists who want their lives out there, the media that wants a story from them, those who want to follow them religiously, and the tech/web-obsessed people like us. Most people don't want their stuff out their for ex-boyfriends/girlfriends, people they didn't like in high school, and the world to see.
Feed readers didn't get as much traction in mainstream culture as twitter did, because it doesn't have the celebrity/Oprah factor. But the Oprah factor is long gone, and there's only so many people obsessed with celebs/athletes/narcissists enough to follow them religiously. With the way athletes and celebs keep sticking their feet in their mouth on twitter, and getting in to various forms of trouble because of it, the appeal to them is going to fade as quickly as the novelty. They realized they finally have a way of communicating with fans directly, but what they're starting to realize is that not everyone who follows them is a fan. Once that happens and most of them hush up, the media following for a story goes along with it, as do those that are obsessed with them.
That leaves twitter with little more than the same crowd feed readers have. Twitter's approaching that same glass ceiling you're applying to feed readers, we're just not looking at it in retrospect yet. It doesn't mean it won't continue to serve a purpose for many people, but it will never turn in to a Facebook or YouTube.
Most importantly, just because feed readers may not ever be adopted by everyone who uses the internet, doesn't mean it has no value to the people who use it. The value is clearly there, it just hasn't been exposed or properly explained to enough people to grasp it. It still has the potential to grow, even if it doesn't become the "next big thing".
Take my dad for example, he's nearly amish in his web knowledge. I showed him google reader, explained the RSS icon in the address bar, and how to subscribe by clicking on it. Got him started with a couple blogs about cars, fighting, and other things he's into. And he's not only using it, he's started to share things with me, commented on things I share, added his own feeds, and everything else. It's not that the tool isn't for him, he just had no idea it existed, or what it could be used for.
I did the same thing for my girlfriend with some gossip blogs, fashion blogs, movie blogs, music blogs, etc. and she loves it. My buddy Ryan can't get off the thing, once he realized he could see everything he followed on the internet in one place, instead of having to go to so many blogs. And that he can instantly share what he does find, with whoever he wants at the click of a button.
Feed readers aren't growing, because it was never exposed to anyone outside of those who follows feeds. Most people out there never will, the same way they'll never use twitter, and they'll never follow blogs. But there's also a big chunk of people who would have a use for this, if they knew about it, and were explained how to use it and how it could help them.
This is all without mentioning the fact that RSS technology, and even readers specifically, can go far beyond just following news (to use the term loosely). Pretty much all of my media consumption is done through RSS in one form or another. Podcasts, tv shows, movies, trailers, and music that I follow all gets automatically downloaded to my tv, stereo, computer, and/or phone automatically through RSS.
But keeping with strictly the feed reader itself, there are still things you can do with a feed reader that twitter can't. I have RSS feeds for all my subscribed YouTube, Vimeo, Netflix, and Hulu content, posting to my feed reader any time something is added to my queue through subscriptions. I also have specific tags or search terms that automatically sync with my feed reader as well.
RSS feeds can also be set up for Flickr accounts, or tags and keywords. I have RSS feeds to show me when bands that I follow are going to be in SoCal for a show. The list could go on and on.... You've posted several other things yourself, that show things that you can do with Google Reader that you can't with twitter. In order for something to be viewable in your twitter stream, it has to be tweeted by someone else.
I've ranted on to the point where few people are probably even reading this, but what it all boils down to is the fact that Google Reader *is* an aggregation tool, and twitter *is* a communication tool, that can be made to somewhat replicate the aggregation done in a feed reader, with a little (too much) work.
Don't denounce the can opener in the cupboard, just because you managed to open the can with a sharp knife.
Furthermore the original post barely makes a case. You wrote that "most of us who were even using RSS readers to begin with have ditched them". Oh really? Based on what evidence? I'm adding feeds all the time and GReader is the main hub of my online activities. I use twitter very rarely but Google Reader is always open as a tab. You tried to back up the very spurious claim that we'd all abandoned RSS by citing a statistic: "eight percent of US online adults post and read updates on Twitter at least monthly". So what? What has that got to do with the idea that people have abandoned RSS or that RSS is dead? The act of reading updates on twitter once a month is not mutually exclusive from the act of using RSS.
RSS is alive and well and living in the browsers of tens of millions of users.