Slashdot Log In
Of Internet Users, Only 4% Knowingly Use RSS
Posted by
CmdrTaco
on Sun Jan 01, 2006 11:00 AM
from the i'll-tell-you-why dept.
from the i'll-tell-you-why dept.
yogikoudou writes "Recent research conducted by Yahoo! and Ipsos reveals that while 12% of surveyed Yahoo users know what RSS is, only 4% of surveyed Internet users use it (PDF) (and know they use it).
Podcasting is also reviewed, with the conclusion that 2% of surveyed people use it.
The increasing number of blogs should go with an increasing number of syndicated readers, as they are now an important part of the web." I've said it before, I'll say it again- if RSS was called SpeedFeed every user would have to have it.
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
Full
Abbreviated
Hidden
Loading... please wait.
4% is still a lot (Score:5, Insightful)
All these Web2.0 companies thinking they're targetting the general Internet public with their RSS, podcasting etc... mashups are only targetting the high-end users of the Internet, and these are the users that only sign-up once, try it for a min or two, then dump it and move on to the next greatest thing.
Overload. (Score:5, Interesting)
I dumped it because I was suffering from information overload. Seeing all the shit happening in the world was just increasing my stress levels. Also, so much of the information is duplicated it just wasn't worth getting. It's amazing how much is plagiarized from AP, Reuters, etc...
Parent
Re:Overload. (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re:Overload. (Score:5, Funny)
Ahhh, so that's why you prefer slashdot, huh? ; )
Parent
Messaging systems are much more useful (Score:4, Insightful)
I set up a feed to the RSS from Slashdot when it was first available. The problem was that so many new articles get posted here, it was immediately a chore to scan all the titles for discussions of interest. I gave up in less than 24 hours, and reverted to scanning the customised home page for new articles and using the message system to check for replies to threads I was interested in. And that was just with one source; try hooking up to the BBC News feed for ten minutes and see if you can keep up! :-)
On the various bulletin board systems I follow, Slashdot being one, I find a good messaging system is invaluable: they tell me what I really want to know immediately but can't see straight off the home page, which is when someone replies to a comment I've made (ideally, with further options to pick up things like replies-to-replies in subthreads I've participated in, or other replies to comments I've replied to as well). They don't add further clutter I don't want. I doubt any simple "dump every new title to an RSS feed" approach will ever rival the power of a moderately good messaging system.
Parent
Re:Overload. (Score:5, Insightful)
It's amazing how much is plagiarized from AP, Reuters, etc...
It also amazes me how so many self-important bloggers can talk about "replacing the MSM" with a straight face. This goes especially for political bloggers on the left and right. A casual perusal of Technorati or memeorandum on any given day is enough to see how much blog content is editorializing on stories published in the MSM. What the hell do they think they'd have to talk about without the MSM?
That's not to say I haven't found blogs worth keeping tabs on, nor to suggest that I don't think there's anything valuable about the blogosphere. But we are a long way off from so-called "citizen journalists" being anywhere close to the league of professional journalism.
Michael
Parent
Re:Overload. (Score:4, Insightful)
Then I learned the truth. The spin happens at journalist-time -- the talking heads (or the writers behind the talking heads, whatever) get their news from the same Associated Press feed, and spin it their own way. In internet-land, there's no talking head -- just the AP story (and inherently the bias of the original AP journalist).
If you're looking at AP news stories online, everyone is just reposting the same [ap.org] exact [go.com] story [msn.com] verbatim [sfgate.com] anyway [yahoo.com]. And generally non-AP topics don't get covered by many different perspectives.
Parent
Re:4% is still a lot (Score:4, Interesting)
For example, if I take slashdot's RSS feed, often I find that the headlines aren't descriptive and I ended up clicking the link and just reading the story. Im not sure how that saved me any time then just going to slashdot.org and scrolling down and scanning the site.
Now, some sites get past that by including some (or all) of the text of an article in the RSS feed.
RSS feeds for ars, slashdot, digg, anandtech, hardocp, shacknews, etc. just seem silly when I can just open those sites in tabs, scroll through and get the full site and everything that goes along with that.
BUT CONVINCE ME! Say "this is where RSS really shines, not that..."
Parent
Why use RSS (Score:5, Insightful)
I have tried I usually find it more cumbersome to read RSS then click on the link to articles i want to read than going to each website doing a much more through san of everything shown and opening what i want to read in tabs. There is nothing RSS provides that can't be had faster with other methods.
Maybe i just haven't found a good RSS reader yet. They all seem to me to be lacking something.
But that is only my opinion. I don't do podcasts either though I can see where those could be useful. Of course I don't listen to portable music so they don't help either.
Re:Why use RSS (Score:3, Insightful)
I have NOT even found a use for IM. If I want talk to some one I use the PHONE. If I want to write I use EMAIL. To me IM is the worst mixure of those two worlds.
RSS currently is just another gimick, to waste bandwidth without giving meanful return.
Re:Why use RSS (Score:3, Funny)
Ah, yes... we finally know why IM (and, for that matter, RSS) is such a failure. Obviously, because the product doesn't cater to YOU, it must be totally worthless.
Now excuse me while I saddle my horse to fetch some water from the village's well...
Re:Why use RSS (Score:5, Interesting)
Kopete makes instant messaging especially great. The little conversation bubble is non-intrusive and you can group chats so you only have one window instead of 12 windows for 12 conversations with 12 people.
Parent
Re:Why use RSS (Score:4, Insightful)
I also only browse about 4-5 sites a day and no blogs, so I don't have the volume of sites I check to make it useful. This might be one of the key differences in RSS being useful or not - the volume of sites you check.
The issue with podcasting is that a lot of checking websites that I do is at work. Text works fine, but if you start using audio you need to wear headphones or you start disturbing people, and if you forward a podcast that is interesting - a lot of people aren't going to 'read it' because they don't have headphones or want to disturb those around them.
Parent
Re:Why use RSS (Score:4, Interesting)
I'd check a lot more sites if they all could be merged into one locally aggrigated portal site, but due to the way RSS works its just not really doable now. The other thing that really needs to be aggregated is site based notifications. Email notification works somewhat if you filter them all to the same place so they dont clutter, but it would be nice to either push or pull them all to one spot to check your messages on slashdot, Talk: on your wiki user page, forum replies/msgs, myspace/xanga/lj/whatever notices, and every other little thing you dont want to go out of your way to check but would like to be informed of.
Parent
Re:Why use RSS (Score:5, Informative)
Thats right, the built in crap or even standalone readers just show you whats recent. Get a reader like aKregator [sourceforge.net]
1) Integrates with Kontact and Konqueror showing articles next to your todo list and emails
2) Manages articles as read/unread as apposed to just whats "current"
3) Allows advanced searching through indexed articles (hate searching slashdot for that article?)
4) Allows a convenient way to archive articles for later read on many websites without having to visit the websites
I do agree the RSS built into firefox and ie7 and even many standalone readers are just useless, they just show you whats currently on the site. aKregator allows you to catch up on news any time.
Parent
Re:Why use RSS (Score:4, Interesting)
Keeping all my subscriptions on a server makes a lot of sense--I can view the same content at work or at home.
Plus, we're talking RSS on AJAX: double your buzzword pleasure!
The interface may be simpler than some, but I call that a feature.
Parent
Re:Why use RSS (Score:3, Interesting)
You're missing the point. If you go to my blog [jasmine.org.uk], as well as my content, you'll see current headlines from other sites I find interesting. How do you think they get there? Do you imagine I sit up every night carefully editing my pages and putting in new links? Hint: I don't. A little fragment of XSL [w3.org] pulls the current RSS from the sites I'm interested in, and integrates it into the page as it rebuilds it. And guess what? Those sidebars on Slashdot are just the same.
RSS may not be interesting to you on your b
Re:Why use RSS (Score:4, Insightful)
Perhaps it is they who are missing the point. Perhaps there are so few users of RSS because it is, in fact, pointless.
Just a thought.
KFG
Parent
Re:Why use RSS (Score:4, Interesting)
It allows me to browse slash and keep ontop of the main sites I visit.
RSS works for me in this context and I haven't ever seen the need to get a dedicated reader or investigate RSS further.
Parent
Why? (Score:5, Interesting)
There are a number of acronyms that can be just as "sexy" as marketdroid made-up name. Think MP3, PC or IBM. Maybe the truth is that much of RSS is hype? Either that or there's SS in the name and it's too nazi, but I won't say it because I fear Godwin's wrath.
It's like I've always said... (Score:5, Funny)
RSS wouldn't exist it if weren't for e-mail spam (Score:4, Interesting)
Why isn't RSS subject to spam? Because in RSS, the recipient pulls the information from a known server, whereas in e-mail an arbitrary sender sends the information to a known recipient.
Now in the era of RSS, recipients have to check two places: e-mail and RSS. Thanks to e-mail spam.
Push pull (Score:4, Insightful)
Most people are used, I think, to giong online and surfing over to their usual bouquet of sites and checking those. The content provider effectively has to "pull" the content consumers in to the content.
RSS on the other hand, is "pushed" out to the recipients. Sure, people still have to surf to the site to get the feed URL, but it's still broadly a push content strategy.
I realize this doesn't sound like much of a change, but for many less sophisticated internet users, the concept of having the news come to you rather than having to go to the news is not familiar.
As an additional point, I suspect that dedicated RSS users will tend to have tens and often hundreds of feeds to sift through. Most people just don't want or can't handle that much information. As a consequence, it is not al that attractive to them.
Re:Push pull (Score:3, Interesting)
Then perhaps a better description of RSS is like an e-mail reader where people give you their addresses, but you don't give them yours. Each time it updates, it asks just those people you've selected "do you have any new public mail for me to read"? If the answer is yes, it downloads it and you can read it.
- Greg
Knowingly? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Knowingly? (Score:3, Informative)
My yahoo, custom google homepage etc... (Score:2)
Apathy on my part but... (Score:3, Interesting)
Not suprised (Score:5, Interesting)
The new Gmail implementation is vaugely interesting as I sometimes see something I wouldn't have otherwise seen (such as Google blog entries and stuff from other news sites I wouldn't normally visit) so I guess as a random selection it makes some sense, but not as a dedicated homepage/plugin etc. that I would deliberately load up frequently.
So I really am not suprised by the 4% figure, the only thing that is suprising is that anybody else is suprised:)
Re:Not suprised (Score:5, Informative)
At other times, I had subscriptions to hack-a-day and freshmeat. Freshmeat was information overload, and hack-a-day didn't really warrant an RSS to read a new item once in a day.
So I think there is a 'right amount' of information that make a good RSS feed.
Parent
They used to call it Pointcast & Channels (Score:5, Interesting)
Pointcast got hot, then Microsoft and Netscape both brought out their variants on it, built into their 4.0 editions. Everyone in Internet marketing was talking about "push" (I tech edited "Marketing Online For Dummies" which came out in 1998), but it died.
Now, this could probably be due to the fact that it was not based on XML, but had a few semi-HTML markup language variants depending on whether you were producing your content for Pointcast, IE, Netscape, etc. The people I've talked to who are hot on RSS claim that the XML and standardization of the RSS specs make this a different ballgame.
I don't know. I'm still expecting Microsoft to "embrace and extend" so that RSS forks and RSS reader makers are scrambling to adapt to all the tags Microsoft introduces.
But in the end, RSS is basically the evolution of "push". I don't understand what's going to drive consumers to adopt it any more than they adopted the channels concept in IE4 and Netscape 4. Perhaps growing adoption by publishers will help push consumer adoption. But after watching all the hype rise, hit a crescendo, and then drop off into a whimper with push, I'm still not going to pin my hopes on RSS achieving widespread consumer adoption.
- Greg
Re:They used to call it Pointcast & Channels (Score:3, Insightful)
Already happened. "Another part of Microsoft's RSS plans seemed to draw the most criticism. Microsoft also released a specification for an extension to one format of syndication feeds, RSS 2.0, for handling ordered lists." [eweek.com]
Re:They used to call it Pointcast & Channels (Score:3, Interesting)
Why did Active Desktop / CDF / PointCast / Netcaster etc. fail?
Because the content sucked. They worked with Disney, ABC, CNN and other big media types to provide the same sort of mind-numbing content that television provides. Compare that with the number of excellent tech blogs, sites like Slashdot and Digg, blogs by knowledgable experts in their subjects, more applications throwing stuff out in RSS/Atom (Flickr for instance).
I worked with IMDb as a contractor from '96 through '98, then got hired on
nail the RSS coffin shut (Score:4, Insightful)
Ironing (Score:3, Insightful)
For example, what the hell is up with firefox's use of LiveBookmark? Why is it such an unmitigated pain in the ass to add an rss feed to firefox? What is the problem with firefox's current (1.0.7) implementation of bookmarks? Okay, I guess I'm bitching here a bit about firefox, but its default implementation of rss is not yet there yet. That, and that alone, is the reason why only 2% of users are doing the rss thing.
Besides that, for some sites, clicking on a feed displays a menu with very little information. Slashdot is a good example, I can read a list of article titles via the rss feed (this article still not available), but you know, as with slashdot, I go there and scan the list and read the articles that I'm interested in, increasingly very few.
I don't know how to implement these things to improve the experience for the user, including myself. Someone with more experience in user interface design will surely have more to offer than this.
ps. The article is still not there.
Where RSS shines (Score:5, Insightful)
RSS could be called Free Beer (Score:3, Interesting)
Personally I use it for anything but news or website update notifications. I use it to monitor bug lists and trouble ticket lists. The integration with Firefox makes it nice.
Too technical (Score:3, Interesting)
Second, the majority of RSS feeds are junk. Most give you a really short headline with nothing in the way of content. You still have to click to read the full story, so there isn't much draw to it.
In other news.... (Score:3, Insightful)
...of Internet users, only 4% knowingly use ARP. However, 99.99% of Internet users do use it.
Seriously, WTF is with that "knowingly" in there, the majority of "Internet users" wouldn't know their ass from their elbow, let alone whar RSS is or what it stands for.
where RSS is going, GeoRSS (Score:4, Interesting)
Second, Yahoo maps documentation [yahoo.net] says, "The XML used by the Yahoo! Maps Simple API is based on geoRSS 2.0." Here is another link [brainoff.com] about GeoRSS and worldKit, a map built using shockwave flash. You publish your map content, and GeoRSS for every point you want on the map.
IMHO, GeoRSS [georss.org] is becoming a de facto standard, becoming part of many blogs, and content managment systems, like Plone [sterngasse.at]. and, BTW, Good luck with all your adventures this New Year.
My use (Score:3, Interesting)
RSS makes everything redundant (Score:3, Insightful)
So why haven't we? (not that I want to).
They don't need to know (Score:3, Insightful)
It's probably not true in this case, but a technology only reaches it's maximum exposure when most people use it without knowing it. When it just becomes something to be taken for granted.
...it's because RSS isn't useful (Score:3, Interesting)
RSS/ATOM gives you a wide range of crap, ranging from "nothing but an HTML link to something", to "the entire article dropped in in an easy to read format, causing you to never, ever have to visit the site that it came from".. depending on what site you subscribe to.
I have slashdot and fark subscribed on one computer.. and I realised.. why even bother? Slashdot and Fark are updated 10-15 times per day, and their RSS feeds are completely and totally useless. About the only thing I actually -use- RSS for is to monitor two of my friends sites that are hardly ever updated.
This is why RSS/Atom isn't being used, because it doesn't HAVE much use.
infrequent blogs (Score:3, Interesting)
It seems silly to use RSS for sites like slashdot or people who write a post or more a day. You can't keep up with that, so you end up having to "manage" your RSS inbox rather heavily. On the other hand, it's a great way to keep track of the less updated blogs; instead of having to load up a whole bunch of sites over and over waiting for new content, you can just be alerted when something new comes up.
Re:RSS (Score:5, Insightful)
Exactly. For example, there's a
But I think the real flaw in RSS is the very concept it implements, the "push technology". People don't like information to be pushed at them. They want to retrieve (pull) it themselves. That's the same behaviour that explains why people don't like ads shoved in their mailboxes, and prefer to ask the salesmen about this or that product: the pitch is the same, but in one case, the information is asked by the customer first. That's also why
Parent
Re:RSS (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:RSS (Score:5, Interesting)
Reading feeds is analoguous to glancing at the headlines when reading the newspaper -- you only read the article if the headline sounds interesting. It cuts down your web surfing time significantly, or if you like, allows you to get more news in the same amount of time.
The major of advantages of RSS are *aggregation* and *push*. Push works if one has the correct expectations of it.
For instance, I have keyword searches on engineeringvillage2.org (a journal search engine) that return results in RSS format. I use it to track new journal publications in my area of research -- very useful for checking up on competitors too.
The only reason I don't use Slashdot's feed is because:
1) It takes a while for it to be updated. (there's a fairly SIGNIFICANT delay between something appearing on the front page and it appearing in the feed)
2) it doesn't have the topic icons (which are great visual cues for filtering out articles of interest)
Parent
Re:RSS (Score:2, Insightful)
RSS is nowhere close to "push technology" (Score:3, Informative)
I don't understand hostility to RSS. To me it's one of the best things that ever happened to the Internet. Setting up RSS feeds is not difficult, and obtaining them isn't either. If most people don't use RSS feeds, is that really such a big deal?
And, actually, the old Netnews protocol does the same job. More efficiently, using less bandwidth.
That's great, but if you're arguing that nobody uses RSS because the demand is artificially being driven by content producers, what makes you think netnews is bet