1. RSS isn’t dead, it’s just too complex

    There is a debate going on among tech personalities and companies over whether or not RSS is dead.  Here’s a quick roundup:

    • It all started when Steve Gilmore claimed RSS was dead in 2009
    • Bloglines - owned by IAC - announced they are closing shop
    • Yesterday, Matthew Ingram from GigaOm said RSS is not dead
    • Dave Winer - credited with the invention of RSS - responds saying RSS “forms the pipes through which news flows”
    • The Google Reader team followed up with a post about Bloglines shutting down, highlighting Google Reader’s amazing growth.
    • TechCrunch’s MG Siegler summarized and added his thoughts here.

    Ironically, I had been in a debate about this very thing prior to Bloglines’ announcement last week.  RSS is an amazing “standard” for connecting sites and services together - or forming the “pipes through which news flows”, as Winer puts it.  However it has failed thus far to hit mainstream with consumers.  It is just too complex.  What it has succeeded with is becoming the plumbing for things like Twitter news accounts, aggregation, etc.  This is made possible by CMS plugis that hit Twitter’s API, and services like TwitterFeed that pull items from RSS feeds, and post them via Twitter.

    If all browsers - including IE - had a standard way of allowing people to subscribe to various services, and the feed readers didn’t resemble email inboxes, then maybe the outcome would have been different.  If you could click on the little orange subscribe link, and be taken to some usable page that walks you through the process of subscribing, everyone might be using RSS today.  Instead, most people have no idea what it is, and many - including myself - have turned to Twitter and Facebook to consume content.

    The future of RSS

    In order for RSS to even have a future, there needs to be cooperation among browsers, publishers, and feed readers. RSS also needs to be rebranded, as the acronym is too daunting for technophobes.  Let’s call it “Subscriptions”, and when you add a feed to your reader, you are “Subscribing”.  This is how it should have been from the beginning, but nobody stopped and thought about the implications of using such a non-consumer-friendly term.

    Let’s summarize what needs to happen:

    • Browsers need to have a standard way of allowing users to subscribe to content.
    • Publishers need to have a standard “Subscribe” button.
    • Feed readers need to make kick ass products, with great mobile experiences.  Google Reader is great, but I don’t need another inbox.
    • Rebrand RSS as “Subscriptions” so the name implies what it is you’re doing.
    • An open board needs to be formed to revitalize RSS.

    Who’s with me?