Confessions of an RSS Junkie

Confessions of an RSS junkie Clo Willaerts, 6 February 2007

Phase 1. Browse (1996-now)

The end of browsing?
User/consumer in control
pulling content through searching
pushing content through micropublishing and user generated content
Growing usage and importance of search engines

Phase 2: Search (2003-now)
Growing usage and popularity of search engines from end 2003 on
Users get better at using them
“ to google somebody”
Convenience and effectiveness
Puts the user in control

Information overload
Google indexes 8 billion+ documents, images and items
Google may scan up to 50 million books currently only available in old-world universities like Harvard, Stanford, Oxford, University of Michigan, and the NY Public Library
Too many search results
Search Engine Optimization has become a Dark Science
Search Engine Advertising has become a bidding game

Phase 3. Subscribe
… and we don’t mean “subscribe to our newsletter”
E-mail newsletters are an old medium now
Spam filters block a lot of them
Privacy laws have increased awareness of users

Phase 3. Subscribe (2006-now)
Bloggers and other UGC publishers:
Rss feeds and subscribe button
OPML files as social currency: view the world through other people’s subscription lists
E.g. www.megite.com
The beginning of the attention engine race (Alex Barnett) http://blogs.msdn.com/alexbarn/archive/2006/02/13/531631.aspx

Ex. 1: feedburner.com (button)

Ex. 2: rss to e-mail
A good way to boost the readership of your blog (or any other online publication that has RSS)
Free services:
www.FeedBurner.com
www.FeedBlitz.com
www.Squeet.com
www.R-mail.org

Some of us enjoy the ride
INFOLUST “(…) forget information overload: this desire for relevant information is insatiable , and will soon move from the online world to the ‘real’ world to achieve true ubiquity. Get ready for a click-and-know, point-and-know, text-and-know, hear-and-know, smell-and-know, touch-and-know and snap-and-know world.” http:// www.trendwatching.com/trends/infolust.htm

Others don’t…
Information overload
Information anxiety (Richard Saul Wurman)
Infoporn
The myth of “keeping up”

Keeping up with that blogosphere
Blogs can serve as
Content Navigators,
Information Filters,
Trusted Niche Guides
Decentralized, user-driven content publishing model
Some blogs are influential
Most are self-centered
Many are:
loud
messy
Matthew Hurst
( Intelliseek, BlogPulse)
http://datamining.typepad.com/gallery/blog-map-gallery.html

Phase 4. Filter
The cure for information overload? http://machinereadable.blogspot.com/2006/04/cure-for-information-overload.html

Tip 1: Find the best aggregators
Aggregators become increasingly more important . Finding the right person, business, web site, etc. who does the best job of filtering (attenuating) in a specific area adds time to your life.
Ex 1: mash-ups of existing sites
Ex 2: start pages
www.Netvibes.com
www.Pageflakes.com

Tip 2: Find the best trackers
Free trend tracking tools:
RSS:
Technorati watchlist
Google blog search
Boardtracker
E-mail
Google news alerts
Graphs:
Blogpulse
Alexaholic
Professional services:
Nielsen buzzmetrics (US)
Wavemetrics.com
Attentio.com (BE)

Tip 3: trust the stars
In any thing you need to learn, find a person who can tell you what is:
Need to know
Should know
Nice to know
Edge case, only if it applies to you specifically
Useless
Some of my favorite marketing/blogging stars:
Jeremy Zadowny
Om Malik
Michael Arrington
Tom Coates
Ben Hammersley
Seth Godin

Tip 4: Unsubscribe to as many things as possible
you probably have way too much redunancy in both your printed and online subscriptions.
if you're using the right aggregators, they'll tell you when something is worth it.

Thank you
Clo Willaerts
[email_address]

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Confessions of an RSS Junkie

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