The history of The Feed is an interesting one.
As the Internet first began, it quickly became difficult for users to curate their own experience. The web, as a sum, is scattered into millions — if not more — of pieces. That has been the catalyst for ever advancement of The Feed. Starting with search engines, evolving into curated feeds like Reddit, personal feeds like RSS, and then eventually where we are today, social networks.
Here’s the intriguing history of The Feed, including the influence of the mobile web:
[Click for Larger]
At one time, RSS feed count was the best way to gauge a following or platform, but now the web is curated more and more via social network shares. That is one reason why Google+ has leveraged its +1 system so much. It’s a new way to rate what is being read. This is one reason why having blog content shared via social media has become so important. Just as RSS subscriptions was the primary means of consuming the web, social media has become the next phase.
The means in which blog content is shared can change and evolve year after year and it is important to try and keep-up with it as best you can. You want to make sure your content is easy for your readers to collect and consume. However, no matter how users curate their own web experience today or tomorrow, the quality of your blog content and curation is ultimately what makes you stand-out from everyone else.
What do you think about the evolution of The Feed?
[via Mashable]
Andrew Fallows says
What’s particularly interesting to me is the meta-level stuff that’s started happening around feed aggregation – not feeds which are aggregators, but tools which are *feed aggregators*. I’m thinking of tools like Hojoki and Flowdock which are “Connect your apps and we’ll coerce your data into a single news feed” services. Those two examples are both much more oriented at organizations and project collaboration than social/personal use, but they’re examples in a growing field.
The Chinese calendar notwithstanding, for me 2014 is going to be The Year of the API Token.
Eric Dye says
Deep and awesome thoughts on this, Andrew, thanks!
I tend to agree with your API Token thoughts, too. 🙂