One of the conversations that has been swirling around the interwebs is whether or not RSS is dead. I, for one, do not think it’s even close to being considered prehistoric and still love what it has to offer.
I think the biggest reason people think it’s headed south is simply because it kicks butt at what it does and nothing more. What people misconstrue and get confused is that room for improvement does not equal poor offering, service, product, etc.
I think a coke can does a darn good job of holding liquid, but it doesn’t do much more than that. No one would, of course, accuse the coke can of being a poor product (or the manufacturers) simply because it doesn’t do much more than what it’s awesome at, right? Of course, perhaps some work could be done on the size, the hold, the ergonomic inconsistencies, yada yada yada, but the darn thing does a good job of holding black acidic liquid.
But, RSS (and the delivery thereof) has lots of room for improvement. One way for it to improve is the speed at which content is delivered. I covered how WordPress is experimenting with Real-Time here and how that’s advancing syndication, but even better news has been within the past month where the PubSubHubbub protocol has gone gold into Feedburner and is delivering what the critics of RSS were moaning and groaning about: Real-Time Web.
Booya.
So +1 to RSS and the continued advancements of it, as well as the delivery mechanisms and protocols that drive it forward.
In addition, with the recent down-time for Twitter, I think people were rudely awakened to the fact that if they’re banking on Twitter to be their news source then they need to make sure that Twitter never fails them…
RSS won’t fail you because RSS isn’t controlled by such fragile systems like Twitter. And with the constant advancement and innovation of RSS Readers, we’re in for some good stuff in the very near future.
Oh, and how much more innovative can Twitter get at it’s core? Not much without killing the core-experience (or bloating it). Apps may innovate, but that’s about it.
RSS is my homeboy for real time news; Twitter, you’re a poser (but I like you anyways).
Ok. Your turn. Convince me I’m wrong.
[Image from Olly]
stephenbateman says
I'm still an RSS junkie, and sub to more feeds than i should. But it gets frustrating to watch a new item pop up in my GooReader, click through, and there's already like 12 comments from Tweetrs.
But I'm certain RSS will fully increase to meet the demand shortly.
Justin Samsel says
Thank you John! It drives me crazy hearing tech leaders all the time saying RSS is dying. So good to hear you on the supporting side of RSS.
There's nothing better than GooReader + the Firefox Feedly plugin. Love.
human3rror says
๐ you're welcome. a lot of people love bandwagonning the newest thing. they all come around eventually. ๐
Eric Granata says
Yes! I'm with you guys. RSS continues to be great and I cannot see a future where I get my news only from those I follow on twitter.
human3rror says
word up.
Steven Rossi says
For me, as far as news goes, RSS is for stuff I know I'm interested in, and Twitter is for stuff I don't know I'm interested in.
Vince says
Well put
ksc says
you can enable pubsubhubbub support for your current blog feed now (if your using feedburner as rss). here's how to do it: http://smarterware.org/2746/how-to-pubsubhubbub-e…
friendfeed is the only one that really supports pubsubhubbub right now, but google reader should soon.
Kevin Bowers says
I can't even try to prove you wrong! I love RSS more than caffeine almost…Twitter is too unorganized for me, with RSS I can read what I want, when I want…I don't think RSS is going anywhere anytime soon ๐
human3rror says
dude, you totally brought up a good point…!
organization.
Josh Wagner says
I posted on my blog about this a little bit ago. I'm on the fence. But the biggest thing for Twitter is the realtime nature of it. And, you can see what like-minded (supposedly) people are reading that you'd like or might like. An RSS feed is just a reproduction of the content at a particular place.
But it's all in how you use it. I could never use Twitter if I had to use just twitter.com. I need an app to use it the way I like. Maybe I just need a great RSS app (or I just need to learn GooReader better).
human3rror says
goo reader is the bomb. and with the new real time syndication possibilities, it's awesome. twitter can fail, rss is forever.
Kevin Bowers says
Word. Goo reader is the bomb.
Jim says
Goo reader rocks and the hot-keys are the way to go to get through all of it.