Many people still don’t know about RSS, a tool that lets one subscribe to updated Web pages or blogs. Brian offers some ideas on how to make RSS more mainstream. Seth Godin has some interesting comments about this. All of this was sparked by Steve Rubel’s list of “35 Ways You Can Use RSS Today.”
Posts Tagged ‘RSS’
Subscribing to Web Pages
Thursday, June 22nd, 2006Netflix RSS
Friday, June 16th, 2006I’ve noticed recently that Netflix is using RSS feeds for a number of things. Most interestingly, the company is allowing customers to subscribe to new release announcements. It makes it easier for customers to stay active with their accounts–a sure issue for customer retention.
Many tend to assume that RSS is just for blogs. It’s important to remember that it can be used for a number of different applications beyond just blogs.
Walking through the Blogosphere
Tuesday, May 23rd, 2006Having trouble keeping up with my RSS feed-reading lately, but coming across some really great posts…
- Liz Dunn from Technorati makes a good point about why you should read both mainstream news and the blogosphere.
- Rob talks about the first mover versus copiers
- Josh tells us about all things RSS at Yahoo!
RSS – Thinking out Loud
Monday, December 12th, 2005Many of you who read this blog are probably sick and tired of me talking about the ins and outs of RSS all the time. It really fascinates me, though…both because of the high potential and relatively low adoption rate. One thought I had this morning in the car: RSS is important with blogs moreso than online newspapers and magazines. With the latter there is an expectation of up-to-the-minute content freshness. As such, I know that I can go to an online newspaper at any time and see updated content. Not so with your typical blogs. Many of them go for days (or weeks) without any changes. My RSS-enabled reader keeps me from going to each URL all of the time. I’m afraid that if I subscribed to an online newspaper via RSS, I wouldn’t be able to keep up with the flurry of content.
Measuring Readership
Thursday, November 3rd, 2005I had an interesting question today about how one measures the subscriber base of a blog. RSS is key, which I posted a bit about several weeks ago. Once it’s enabled within a blog, a few indicators can help you get your arms around the numbers.
I happen to use Bloglines, which gives me the number of Bloglines users that happen to be subscribers to our blog. We also have an account over at Feedburner which gives us circulation figures on how many users (Bloglines, Yahoo, Google, etc.) are requesting our RSS feed on a regular basis. This number is an interesting one to watch grow as we post more and more.
By the way, if you’re interested in subscribing to our blog, our link can be found here.