cdixon - Latest Comments in Twitter killed RSS (and that’s a bad thing) - Chris Dixon

Re: Twitter killed RSS (and that’s a bad thing) - Chris Dixon

Doug Camplejohn — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 14:10:15 -0000

RSS, the protocol, isn't dead it's just time for it to fade into the woodwork, just like other protocols/standards. I don't ask you what HTML Browser you use, or what SMTP server your company uses, these are just the building blocks that average users don't need to know about. RSS is a great technology, but a crap user experience for the average user. It's time for the RSS acronym to disappear, and the RSS icon and reader to be replaced with a better and more valuable user experience.

Re: Twitter killed RSS (and that’s a bad thing) - Chris Dixon

Elena Benito-Ruiz — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 04:16:15 -0000

I also use the feedly + greader combo to read feeds, including Microplaza's!
I would welcome you to dig into MP or wait for the MP2.0 :)

Re: Twitter killed RSS (and that’s a bad thing) - Chris Dixon

burtlo — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 13:10:43 -0000

Before RSS was a much bigger deal, I didn’t understand how it was a game changer in terms of reading the net. I had friends way ahead of me in this game.

I learned from that now and have a well populated Google Reader. I continue to hear that Twitter has now made this extinct but I haven’t gotten that impression. However, that is mostly because I’m using the vanilla-based twitter through the web and there you have no great tools to stay on top of trending topics.

It wasn’t until I found myself at a conference that #blahblah and trending topics became important because they weren’t just trending topics they were live chat rooms, live feeds of data, or streams.

I really saw a benefit to Twitter for the first time. Individuals had these streams of data of all types and if the #trended it or used the right keywords there was amazing use. I could now pipe in data from all these sources about the topic I wanted. It was a disjointed forum that erupts out of communication. Which is better than trying to get people to come to a temporal place to act as a forum.

So I just downloaded Tweetdeck and I see where it is in some ways an awesome tool that far outstrips RSS as a discovery tool. But I still can’t see it replacing RSS for me because there is far too much duplication and spam.

So I see Twitter as a great discovery tool, I can pull twitter searches into Google Reader and then use those to find the blogs/info that I eventually want add as permanent RSS feeds.

I see it as a compliment, not as a replacement.

Problems:

* ReTweets are awesome if you are trying to expose your audience to the information. However, to those within the same circle, say at an event, it is a duplication of the previous tweet.

* Duplication (in general) of posts in a given space, like when people quote people at a particular event. An event has a measurable echo here and the larger the personality the larger the echo.

* Spam from outside individuals that are adding negative value to the space (compared to a repost which is perhaps considered neutral or only slightly negative).

Some things I need for twitter to gain more value:

* There are no decent tools to deal with the duplication. You don’t want the streams of data to be blocked, you want clients to manage it. I imagine that a tool that compares posts 140 character posts might have a good shot at dealing with the duplication.

* There are no good community tools to assist with positively reinforcing good posts and negatively reinforcing spam/bad posts.

Re: Twitter killed RSS (and that’s a bad thing) - Chris Dixon

Mike Henderson — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 10:21:27 -0000

I just use MP for the twitter link tracking. I haven't really dug into it too much more than that.

For feeds I use GReader and the Feedly plugin for Firefox. Really like that combo.

-M

Re: Twitter killed RSS (and that’s a bad thing) - Chris Dixon

elenabrz — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 07:02:12 -0000

Hi Chris
If you wanna go 'open', try identi.ca
I've gone thru all comments, extremely interesting to us, here @microplaza.

What we are trying to do with microplaza is to filter noise from twitter by showing only those tweets with links, not only from the public timeline but what's more important from your personal/Twitter network.

ShanaC says: "The thing is, that those links aren't storeable"
Well they are, use the Bookmark option and you'll always have them over there.

Ben Atlas says: "I still find that reader gives me what I want without the noise. I separated Reader into groups/folders."

Yes, grouping and categorizing is a step beyond dealing with noise. What we did for instance is to give users the possibility to create groups (we call them Tribes) and enroll ppl to those groups...and then when you click on a tribe you get every single url retweeted by the members of that tribe, along with a thumbnail and associated tweets. If you prefer, you can also grab the RSS and follow your tribes on Feedly for instance (imho, the best RSS reader out there, but I'm a visual learner so that might do the trick).

@Wolfy: thanks for the Microplaza mention, are you combining MP with RSS readers?

@clarkethomas: "There's no easy way to group or have a history of posts in twitter"

Well yes by combining tribes creation + bookmarks.

Right now we are in the process of developing a more stable/robust Microplaza, v2.0, and apart from the backend improvements we are definitely trying to listen to ppl needs (our own as well, since we also use RSS and Twitter for own purposes) & come up with a better personalized app, forthcoming features are being evolved around the tribes idea (if you want to stay tuned, you can also follow @microplaza or subscribe to our blog)

The personalized real-time is the next thing, it's always like that, when a given technology hits the mainstream and there's a plethora of (dis)information and resources etc...the next stage is to provide users with filtering tools, and the stage after that is to provide the personalization of filtering. And real-time...which is even harder due to the crazy activity on Twitter.

Re: Twitter killed RSS (and that’s a bad thing) - Chris Dixon

chris dixon — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 12:10:33 -0000

I always tweet my new blog posts. maybe you just missed them?

Re: Twitter killed RSS (and that’s a bad thing) - Chris Dixon

terrycojones — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 09:00:10 -0000

Is there a reason why you don't tweet links to your new blog posts? I completely stopped using Google reader a year ago, in favor of Tweeted links. I follow you, would be happy to read the majority of your blog posts, but am not going to start in with GReader again.

Re: Twitter killed RSS (and that’s a bad thing) - Chris Dixon

Dave F — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 02:54:15 -0000

RSS doesn't have to die but innovation must return to that medium... Twitter frustrates me because it is a simple concept which is useless proved so by Admins back in the day but repackaged and made accessible via smart phones - the only reason it has caught on. Patience will see twitter die, when replaced by a useful solution but that may be years out do to the limited ability of the mass public.

Re: Twitter killed RSS (and that’s a bad thing) - Chris Dixon

needcaffeine — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 18:36:49 -0000

twitter may replace the AP steam, but I don't see it displacing RSS. There's no easy way to group or have a history of posts in twitter. With RSS I can be offline for awhile & return to data from several days, twitter is more real-time.

Re: Twitter killed RSS (and that’s a bad thing) - Chris Dixon

Bruce Warila — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 17:13:17 -0000

Think this through. If everyone moved from RSS to Twitter, some critical mass of humans still have to read the stuff they tweet about. As a first-consume (before you share) technology, Twitter doesn't scale to everyone. As you approach all-of-humanity on the adoption curve, the curve that represents the dumbing down of humanity begins to rise proportionately.

Re: Twitter killed RSS (and that’s a bad thing) - Chris Dixon

ValleyDriver — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 14:47:24 -0000

i think i get your point. but that implies one uses Twitter. i gave up on Twitter months ago. just don't need to know that quickly. i use Google Reader to accumulate posts to my favorite websites and posts. then when i am in the mood i go to Reader and catch up - once a day or may ever two or three days.

Re: Twitter killed RSS (and that’s a bad thing) - Chris Dixon

Wolfy — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 10:54:30 -0000

Twitter is too hard to filter and you have to monitor it in real time to get value out of the links. Microplaza is good, but I find myself relying on my feed reader more than ever. I use Google Reader and Feedly. And by now I have all the same articles in my reader as are being tweeted, and Feedly makes it easy to find them.

-M

Re: Twitter killed RSS (and that’s a bad thing) - Chris Dixon

Scott Paley — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 10:43:39 -0000

I would at least say that RSS 'the protocol' isn't going anywhere, but MAYBE RSS 'the client reader app' is in trouble. That said, IMO RSS Readers scale better for following lots of blogs. There is so much noise on Twitter and unless you are following your stream constantly, it's really easy to miss anything that was posted more than an hour or two earlier - especially when you start following more than just a few hundred people.

The protocol is used for way, way more than just a way for client readers to subscribe to content. It acts as the plumbing for a lot of CMS integration these days, as one example.

Re: Twitter killed RSS (and that’s a bad thing) - Chris Dixon

chris dixon — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 22:58:07 -0000

I mean redudancy of institutions - what I think you mean by businesses. I'll write more about it shortly.

URL shorteners were a niche novelty pre twitter. Bad guys wouldn't waste their time on them. History suggests its only a matter of time before someone penetrates twitter accounts or url shortener to create a major, web-delivered malware attack. URL shorteners could get ahead of this by thinking about security sooner rather than later.

Re: Twitter killed RSS (and that’s a bad thing) - Chris Dixon

chris dixon — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 22:53:03 -0000

Interesting. I think you are right that one of the two forces will win and it will probably be driving traffic.

Re: Twitter killed RSS (and that’s a bad thing) - Chris Dixon

ShanaC — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 21:30:32 -0000

Correct. Follow a long tail item and you realize how hard it is to get good information off of twitter. I still will just go to the top blog on the subject. Seriously.

Re: Twitter killed RSS (and that’s a bad thing) - Chris Dixon

GeekMBA360 — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 20:51:37 -0000

I'm not so sure that Twitter killed RSS.

RSS subscriber count of my blog is still growing steadily. I did notice that instead of commenting on my blog, some readers started to send me direct messages via Twitter regarding my blog posts.

I do think that RSS could become more powerful if more identifiable information can be added (e.g. i like to know who is subscribing to my blog.) But, I think RSS is here to stay, and Twitter will complement it, but not kill it.

Re: Twitter killed RSS (and that’s a bad thing) - Chris Dixon

Rathan — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 13:02:27 -0000

I wonder if its more of a UX/UI problem with Google Reader rather than the death of RSS. It seems like Twitter is easier to follow because the interface isn't clunky, and you can scan a lot of information quickly, where as Google Reader, you have to actually scroll past the entire article.

If the postings were short titles that you can quickly scan through, would that save your impression of Google Reader?

Re: Twitter killed RSS (and that’s a bad thing) - Chris Dixon

Ian Rosenwach — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 11:35:39 -0000

Yes, this brings up the question of how much content Publishers should include in their RSS feeds, and the bigger issue of how to monetize an RSS feed. AdSense for Feeds (Feedburner) seems to be the standard but I don't see it as a big business just yet.

There is the delicate balance between driving traffic to a blog and syndicating content to a 3rd party. Twitter drives traffic AND is a place to read short content. One of these two forces will need to win, and I think it will be driving traffic. That's what was successful for Google. It's best to be a platform for discovery than a destination in itself. The platform is much more scalable.

Re: Twitter killed RSS (and that’s a bad thing) - Chris Dixon

Guest — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 11:32:39 -0000

Re: Twitter killed RSS (and that’s a bad thing) - Chris Dixon

Guest — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 11:32:11 -0000

Yes, this brings up the question of how much content Publishers should include in their RSS feeds, and the bigger issue of how to monetize an RSS feed. AdSense for Feeds (Feedburner), but that seems to be the standard but I don't see it as a big business just yet.

There is the delicate balance between driving traffic to a blog and syndicating content to a 3rd party. Twitter drives traffic AND is a place to read short content.

One of these two forces will need to win, and I think it will be driving traffic. That's what was successful for Google. It's best to be a platform for discovery than a destination in itself. The platform is much more scalable.

Re: Twitter killed RSS (and that’s a bad thing) - Chris Dixon

chris dixon — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 11:24:49 -0000

Yes, but you could imagine Twitter apps that could/will fix that soon.

Re: Twitter killed RSS (and that’s a bad thing) - Chris Dixon

chris dixon — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 11:23:00 -0000

Maybe the messaging system only needs to send headlines & links and
the long form stuff can sit on blogs.

Twitter could be good for monetizing blogs since people like me are
actually visiting their sites again.

Re: Twitter killed RSS (and that’s a bad thing) - Chris Dixon

chris dixon — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 11:20:22 -0000

Being online constantly ;)

Re: Twitter killed RSS (and that’s a bad thing) - Chris Dixon

aweissman — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 10:25:50 -0000

I am all for openeness - more than most people - but even if it were not as open - what's the negative affect on users? Redundancy can mean business wise or application wise - so I eagerly await your post ;-)

As to URL shorteners - I am so unobjective here as to be worthless - but they have been around for a decade without a material phishing problem. Not that it cant happen - but its an issue was beyond url shorteners - and it can and has been majorly minimized