RSS
Really Savvy Surfing (and Shopping!)
User Experience Group, Fry Inc.
RSS: Last Year's Big VC Love
- It is hard to travel Silicon Valley these days without hearing the term RSS. People who don't even know what the term means want to invest in it, create companies around it, or add it to their products.
-Kevin Laws, Principal. PacRim Venture Partners
Venture Blog Feb 8 2005
Slightly Over Eager...
- Despite the recent attention to RSS in the mainstream press, we're still at the tip of the iceberg... I predict that 2005 will be the year of RSS adoption.
-Debbie Weil, Publisher WordBiz Report
Darling of Web 2.0 Craze
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RSS is the most significant advance in the fundamental architecture of the web since early hackers realized that CGI could be used to create database-backed websites
-Tim O'Reilly, October 2005
How Popular *is* RSS?
- Awareness of RSS is quite low among Internet users. 12% of users are aware of RSS, and 4% have knowingly used RSS.
-Yahoo RSS Whitepaper
What is RSS
- A family of XML file formats for web syndication. There is some disagreement regarding what (if anything) RSS stands for
- Really Simple Syndication: an emerging, standards-based framework for distributing, subscribing-to and re-using diverse content-types (headlines, full text, music files, images, video clips).
- Rich Site Summary: a technology which can be utilized to notify users that there is new content on a given site, and let them sample just enough of it to see if they like it and want to visit the site to get the "full" version of the article or item.
Example: Story On Web Page
Example: Same Story via RSS
RSS is Perfect For...
- The best kind of content for RSS is that which is highly perishable and minimally confidential - info that is immediately relevant and which benefits the company when made widely public quickly
-Tom Barnes, MediaThink
Highly Perishable: New Products
Highly Perishable: Search Results
Who Publishes RSS?
- 8 million feeds and counting!
- Weblogs
- News Outlets
- Corporate Marketing
- Manufacturers
- Online Retailers?
Why Provide RSS?
- Opportunity To Reach Savvy Web Users
- Hotline To Media/PR Outlets
- Search Engine Visibility Boost
- Site Traffic Boost
- Better Control over Brand/Copy/Assets used by Affiliates
Increase Traffic Success Story
- The NYT said that in March its Web site generated 5.9 million page views via RSS, a 342 percent increase over the same period a year ago.
- Ad Week, August 15 2005
Provide RSS Or Else?
- Hacking Netflix: Homebrew RSS
Provide RSS Or Else?
- Scraped Feeds: Jon Stewart Show
Usability Problems with RSS
- Ugly Orange Button Experiences
Usability Problems with RSS
- Newsreader/Podcatcher Glut
Help Is Here/On The Way
- It's in Firefox "Live Bookmarks"
- It's in Apple OS X "Tiger"
- It's coming to Windows Vista
- It's running Portal Startpages
Where This Is Going
- RSS is surely part of tomorrow's open, loosely joined commerce.
-Dan Gillmor, SiliconValley.com
