RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is getting a lot of attention once again, this time it seems to be stimulated by the Wall St. Journal’s interest in it. (Aside: It’s interesting how the traditional media outlets continue to drive much of the blogosphere)
PR Opinions was in danger of becoming RSS Opinions last year, but I’ve weaned myself off promoting RSS on a daily basis and instead I am focussing on boring the pants off people face-to-face.
RSS is a typical technology sale. When you try and explain it to a normal person you can see they begin to lose the will to live. But when you sit them at a computer and show them how RSS can:
1) Save a huge amount of time monitoring hundreds of websites
2) Provide a low-cost mechanism of publishing content which people can subscribe to
Well then RSS becomes far more interesting.
The Online Journalism Review has an interesting article on the pro’s and con’s of RSS which is worth a read.
The simple fact about RSS is that it is becoming a useful mechanism for reading and publishing content online. It means that publishers can cut through the spam filter directly to their readers as long as their content is relevant and well written. Furthermore, publishers can attract people to leave their RSS Readers to go directly to the source website with a little intelligence.
The downside of RSS is that there is still no means of measuring it’s success. You can’t easily find out how many people are subcribed or how many unique individuals read your feed. In a world of online measurement that is a serious problem.
Steve Rubel had a conversation with the RSS’ daddy Dave Winer earlier this week. Dave believes the users should take over RSS and I agree with him. The emergence of a rival standard “ATOM” has created nothing but confusion and hopefully Google will see the light and fall back to the RSS camp.
RSS is still in its infancy, but it’s incredibly useful. The best way to understand it is to get your hands dirty and use it. Cape Clear has been offering RSS feeds for our news and site updates for quite some time and we’re seeing a lot of growth in the traffic numbers – though I can’t give you specifics!
RSS for Public Relations means increased efficiency and timeliness in monitoring news and opinions. It also provides an alternate channel for communicating directly with your audience. And it’s (relatively) free. What are you waiting for?
Dan Gillmor wrote last year:
“I wish public-relations people would get with the program, too. If they’d only start creating RSS feeds of releases, journalists and the public at large could see the material they want, and the PR industry would be able to stop blasting huge amounts of e-mail to people whose inboxes are already over-cluttered. Of course, there will continue to be a use for e-mail in PR, but the volume could be cut substantially.”
Here’s a tutorial I wrote last year on setting up an RSS Reader for the uninitiated – give it a whirl.
Footnote:
Thanks to Darren Barefoot for the link to the OJR article.
Computerworld’s Quick Study on RSS.
Wired on RSS and how it fights Information Overload.
eContent Magazine: Can RSS Reduce Information Overload?
Kevin Dugan evangelizing RSS with PRNewswire’s Media Insider.
Murphy's Law 