Is RSS Mainstream? (Via Steven Cohen)
I have a simple, unscientific test for determining if a web service or product has crossed over into the mainstream: I ask my friends and family — most of whom are not very geeky and generally represent average technology users, in my opinion — if they’re using the service. If they are, then its mainstream. If they’ve at least heard of it, then the service is heading toward the mainstream. Facebook is mainstream. Gmail is mainstream. Twitter is headed in that direction. RSS though, according to my test, is not.
I’ll have to do this test with family members next time I see them, but I can already guess their responses – they’re likely to not even know what RSS is.
I’ve been using an RSS reader since 2005 and can’t imagine life without it. Most of my professional reading is delivered to my desktop via RSS – thanks to RSS I no longer have to put up with flame wars and difficult-to-follow threads on email lists (I only subscribe to ONE email list, and it’s not a discussion list). I keep up with hundreds of interesting people using RSS, and can’t begin to quantify how much I have learned using this tool. I’d have to say that RSS is the one tool I can’t do without.
What about you, dear reader? Do you use RSS, and if so what is your choice of reader? Do you actually visit this blog, or do you read it via RSS?
10 Comments
Yeah, I use the “mum test”, to see if something’s become mainstream, and I’m afraid that RSS would fail miserably.
However, I’ve been using it since 2006. I started out with Netvibes, but moved across to Google Reader after about three months.
Sure, it’s necessary for people like us, who like to know everything, but most people aren’t compulsive knowledge-gatherers. Most people are content to simply read their friend’s page (in the case of Livejournal) or their News Feed on Facebook to keep an eye on their friends’ status.
I mean, in terms to Web 2.0 accessibility, setting up a feed reader still takes a certain degree of effort and knowhow.
But you can still have flamewars – they just exist in Comments these days…
It sends me mad, this. Perhaps if RSS had a friendlier name it would be more popular. I consider it essential, but so many people don’t even understand the term, even people who would find it extremely useful. I get quite evangelical about it, actually.
I ran training for the call centre folk at work last week and I think about 10% had heard of RSS. Given the audience that was probably better than expected. I do recall reading a statistic somewhere that only 5% of net users are aware, or use, RSS. I think that gels with my experience. However, it’s one of those things that sits under a chunk of stuff; folk may not be using it at a personal level themselves.
I read all blogs via feeds these days but pop in to the live site to check comments and engage. I’m also on a few mailing lists which I find useful in other ways. Blogs are personal fiefdoms whereas elists tend toward more of a group thang.
I don’t use RSS, but I think it’s time I started. My argument for not doing it before was that I knew when most of my stuff updated, and checked them accordingly. But lately my list of blogs, etc has got kinda huge, so I think I’ll soon be setting it up. But, like snail, I would go to the actual sites for the comments.
Btw, facebook has just passed my ‘mum test’, although she thinks it’s too complicated and prefers “normal email”. I’ll have to walk her through it again :p
My Mum is on Facebook and uses Flickr all the time. I have also showed her bloglines, but not sure if she is still using that.
I love Netvibes- and have shown it to quite a few people here at work.
The Commoncraft video on RSS is a nice place to go when explaining RSS.
K
I read all the blogs I follow via Bloglines and I’d be lost without it.
I no longer mention RSS to people, but I DO advise them to use news-readers (or feed-readers – the terminology of all this is so maddening!) to follow news and blogs.
RSS makes me think of pages of scary XML code, and too often that’s what people get when they click on an RSS link, which is why I tend to start from the reader end.
Hmm, didn’t realise I needed a little rant of that subject until you asked the question! Thanks!
Hmmm interesting – RSS certainly doesn’t pass my family test. Facebook is more familiar since both my sister and I use it. But Twitter is beyond them, and though they know I blog I don’t think they visit it. Even husband doesn’t appear to use RSS for his blog stuff – he seems to visit each one instead. But he does participate in forums.
I think Alison makes a good point about terminology.
I’m using Google reader at present. I was using Bloglines for a while but they seem to be having problems updating their feeds so I’ve stuck with GR instead. I read the post in my reader but usually come to the blog to leave comments etc.
I’m definitely going to have to ask family about this, when I see them at Christmas. Will report back!
I’ve only started using rss in the last 6 months. I had a trial run 18 months ago, but the sites I was reading did a poor job of implementing their feeds (not updating the feed when new content was available, updating the feed every day when the advert changed but no new content was available etc.), and it put me off for a while.