Let’s face it, RSS is for geeks.
Only the hardcore blog followers use it.
Sure, there are those exceptions, but for the most part, you’re everyday, typical Internet citizen is not leveraging RSS feeds to consume the web. That’s why walled garden networks like Facebook and Pinterest are popular. It “juices” the web and makes it more palatable.
There are some who have leveled up with tablet apps like Flipboard or maybe even tried Feedly once, but for the most part, RSS has never got the traction it should have.
Or at least that’s what I thought.
Google Reader
With Google’s recent announcement of pulling the plug on Google Reader, a sleeping giant arose from its slumber. I was a little surprised to see just how many were upset by the news, and even more surprised with how many were interested in finding a replacement fast. Perhaps an RSS feed subscriber count does means something. It will be interesting to see just how many people were seriously reading their RSS feeds, as Google Reader dies and all those subscriptions are flushed out.
The Future of RSS
Even with this latest bump on the information super highway, I’m still having my doubts about the future of RSS. As Google seems to be killing itself off one piece of it a time, you begin to get the feeling that Feedburner–the most popular RSS feed syndication app–may already be slated to get the ax by Google. Of the many products that Google offers–Business Apps, Analytics, Gmail and more–this is one of those that has not seen any kind of recent facelift (much like Google Alerts, which seems more and more broken as time passes).
If Feedburner follows suite and meets its demise, RSS is going to take a serious hit.
Will it recover? Has RSS seen better days? What do you think?
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Adam Shields says
On an average day I get 300-350 page views on my blog. But I usually get between 700-1000 full rss views. I think a lot of people really undervalue RSS and think that Facebook or twitter will replace.
Just for comparison, on an average day I get 50-55 referrals from Pinterest, 25-30 from Facebook and 10-15 from twitter.
But I have less than 200 RSS subscribers, 225 facebook fans, 780 twitter followers and 340 Pinterest followers.
I usually post 5-8 times a day. So many of my RSS subscribers are regular readers, most of all other social media followers are not.
Eric Dye says
Yeah, I’ve found the same to be true.
Jeremy Smith says
While I understand why you mean with this, I have to seriously push back because Feedburner, as “sufficient” as it is, lacks so much. There are so many bugs, it is NOT intuitive, and it just might need to die so that something better can come along.
Eric Dye says
You’re right about it not being intuitive. It’s down right ugly. I think Google’s going to kill it and I’m wondering if I need to jump ship sooner than later, as many blogs will be starting from ground zero on their RSS subscriber count. I’m just not really happy with the options I’ve found so far.
Rachel Blom says
That’s my fear as well, that Google will kill Feedburner. Like Eric, I haven’t been able to find a good alternative yet though and I need to, because I have a lot of RSS subscribers (and email subscribers by the way, which is also done via Feedburner). Not sure where to go thus far…
Eric Dye says
*sigh*
Paul Prins says
Well I don’t see the RSS spec going anywhere anytime soon. It is a mainstay of the web at this point and many platforms leverage it. As for RSS readers, they have always been for power users who consume a large amount of news (I push through probably 400+ articles a day via feeds). So it isn’t a surprise that Google canned Reader – there was no greater future for the platform and it was not part of their core competency. While it did have a loyal following, the resources to update the experience for mobile just wasn’t worth it so they EOLed it.
Eric Dye says
How do you see the future of Feedburner?
VietChristian says
Is podcast derived from RSS? Podcast is going away soon on the mobile world?
Eric Dye says
Although podcasts leverage RSS technology, I think they do best when they’re tied into a system like iTunes. The hub approach works best I think (for the general masses).