I have to agree with Steve (Furrygoat) here. RSS is useful, RSS is important, but it hasn't really 'broken through' yet. At least, not "as RSS". Where it is becoming more useful and prevalent is through it's use in other areas as a syndication mechanism. For example, ask your favourite bell weather non-techie what RSS is, and you will likely get a fairly blank stare. However, ask them about My Yahoo, or podcasting, and you're more likely to get something back.
According to the Yahoo RSS awareness study (via Alex Barnett's fine blog), only 4% of Internet users knowingly use RSS. 27% use it via portals and other uses (like My Yahoo, or My MSN). The point Furrygoat makes that I think is highly appropriate is to "give it a purpose". Bloggers tend to be amazing echo chambers, and rapidly begin to believe that everyone is blogging (or alternately that blogging is only popular among techies). However, the blog is not the important thing, as those who have watched the content level of this blog plummet to near nothing. One of the things I was involved in at MSDN was the creation and use of their RSS feeds. We could have been like many other companies and just tacked them on the outside, ready for the 4% to come in and consume them. We did that, but we also (via the RSSView control) used them to assist us in publishing. Pre-Chris-Sells-complaining-until-we-had-to-develop-some-solution, publishing headlines to MSDN was hard. With the RSS control, adding dynamic content became easy. Thwop the control on a page, connect it to one (or more) RSS feeds, and we could change headlines with about an hour's notice (caching). So, if you've been to MSDN and looked at the home page, or any of the Developer Centers, you're a user of RSS.
Where is this rambling to? Well, I guess back to my (and I think Steve's) premise -- stop focussing on the technology, and use it. The average person cares more for their own problems ("Everyone wants a big, red button"), and not for buzzwords. People don't use the Web because it's "HTTP 1.1 compliant".
Print | posted on Monday, February 06, 2006 4:22 AM