The Wrongview of the RSS Worldview

A wise marketer once said, "Don’t try to change someone’s worldview is the strategy smart marketers follow." But this same wise marketer (Seth Godin) is trying, for a second time, to change the majority of his blog readers’ worldview.

In a recent blog entry, Seth points out that the percentage of his blog readership from RSS feeds is “scary-low.” Seth then goes on to simply explain what RSS is and how to subscribe to his blog using an RSS feeder. This is the second time Seth has tried to get his readers to do something they either don’t care to do or still don’t know how to do. Or maybe most people don’t want to have an RSS reader.

The only way RSS is going to work is if we don’t know its there. RSS needs to be 100% invisible. RSS needs to be baked inside every program on everyone’s computer. RSS must be seamless to reach the masses. We shouldn’t have to use an add-on program and copy/paste geeky code to use it. It has to be simpler. It has to fit our worldview like so many other computer applications of being super easy to use, we don’t even know we are using it.

Yes … RSS is not for nerds anymore. However, RSS is still too geeky for the rest of us.

Comments

[James Shewmaker]

If you are using MODERN software such as Firefox or Safari or Thunderbird then it is seamless and you do not have to use an add on program or copy and paste geeky code.

It is not the fault of the RSS world that MS is so slow at developing its OS features, nor is it the RSS world's fault that users are so apathetic about MS that they will put up with its outdated browser. Now that MS has decreed from Mount Redmond that next year RSS will be part of both IE and OE - you the lemmings of the internet world will get your seamlessness from your his royal Gateness.

Its not that I do not understand your premise, (Vox Populi Reigneth) its just that the fault lieth not with the availability of Seamless integration but with the Inertia of Apathy.

Notwithstanding all the above, from a strictly marketing worldview, your criticism of Seth Godin's attempt to "tilt at windmills" is valid.

Build a better Mousetrap and the whole world will complain that it doesn't work the way the old ones did.

[Gary]

Well, I see the irony, but a) come on, techies have to evangelize about new(ish) technology and b) I disagree with your idea that RSS has to get significantly more "invisible" to be effective. I mean, all you have to do nowadays is subscribe at bloglines.com or similar services, type in the URL, and - done (bloglines even susses out where the feed is most of the time, so you don't have to). Yeah, it could get even better, and it probably will, but it's not exactly like coding HTML by hand, or sumptin.

As I read his essay, the main thing I would have done differently is skip the stuff about how it works and jump straight to the part about "click here (or here) to try it." That would have made it seem as easy as it actually is.

[johnmoore (from Brand Autopsy)]

Gary and James ... we think it is easy to use RSS. But my twin sister, slightly older brother, and older sister don't. They do not want to subscribe to bloglines in order to use RSS. Heck, they don't even know about Thunderbird, Safari, or Firefox. They think Thunderbird is a cheap booze. They think Safari is what they saw on an episode of Daktari. And Firefox? They think it was some arcade game they played back in the day. As it stands today, RSS is just too obtuse for them to understand, much less use.

We can evangelize RSS all we want but the more I talk with people about it, the more I believe RSS needs to be easier for it to cross the proverbial chasm. Because the only way my two sisters and my brother are going to use RSS is if they don’t know they are using it. That's why I think RSS needs to be even simpler for chasm-crossing usage.

[Niall Cook]

I think this and your subsequent post are valid, but seem to be suggesting two different things. In your Starbucks analogy (a very good one, IMHO) you make the point that people need the cup (although of course - like the bloke down the boozer with his own pewter tankard behind the bar - you can also bring your own).

However, here you seem to be suggesting that people want coffee pouring into all their existing cups. I'm not sure that's the right approach.

Dave Winer has long campaigned for a consistent "feed:" protocol, to be used like the ubiquitous "mailto:" links. To keep the caffeinated theme going, this would provide an easy way of ordering their skinny-mocha-choca-latte-ccino as well as a way of choosing the cup.

[Matt]

I have a slightly different take on this. I came to RSS after suffering from massive information overload from political blogs and the dozens (sometimes hundreds) of political e-mails I received each day.

These days I try and evangelize to all of my friends about RSS feeds. It's not that I expect a huge number of people to pick it up. But on a personal level I would not have found such a valuable tool unless someone explained it to me.

Of course, your larger point holds about the need for simple and seemless integration of RSS feeds. I suppose I was just responding because I wanted to highlight the public service announcement value that attaches to this type of technological evangelism.

[Gary]

John - I agree - rereading Godin's original post, maybe instead of suggesting that he get rid of the paragraph on what it IS - I SHOULD have suggested starting with the part about "RSS lets the articles come to you and you don't waste time checking web sites that haven't updated." Your web-feeble relatives (and we all have those in our closet, don't we?) presumably do have computers, internet, e-mail, right? All that stuff looked complicated to them (and to me and you) once upon a time, and we all had to be sucked into using it by the tangible benefits.

I guess I was tripped up by phrases like "invisible" and "don't know they're using it." I'm usually aware that I'm using the internet, driving my car, utilizing a toothbrush, etc. But the reason I use them all is that at some point someone said "you gotta get this thing" and convinced me the benefits were worth the cost/learning curve*

Don't get me wrong - I agree with your philosophy that consumers are not going to be rushed or herded beyond their comfort zone, and that not all of us (not most of us) adopt things that seem to make our lives MORE complicated.

And Niall - you've hit the nail on the head - I've ignored the proliferation of RSS "flavors" by just hoping my RSS reader will figure it all out, but the advertisement of all these types and the little stickers and buttons we all put on our blogs do tend to confuse. There does need to be a standard protocol so that we provide a standard link or graphic that says "link here" and it actually subscribes people, not hands them a page full of code, like the "little orange buttons" often do.

*well, okay, my parents just MADE me brush my teeth.

[seth godin]

What Henry Luce knew:

Subscribing to a magazine used to be strange and novel and tricky. It's still tricky, but it's no longer strange.

Luce knew how valuable subscriptions were compared to newsstand sales. I know (yes, I'm no Henry Luce, but I do know) that RSS is getting more adopted every day, and only a finite number of blogs are going to make anyone's cut.

When Yoyodyne started (1991) email was a novelty. It took us a few years, but we ended up getting more email every day than any entity in the whole world.

I don't think it's about Starbuck and the cup. I think it's about Starbucks and the cup holder! Getting Detroit to add cup holders helps Starbucks a whole bunch. And making cups that fit into cup holders is important too.

RSS will keep getting better. Your blog should fit into the RSS cupholder (natch) and it can't hurt if many bloggers continue to encourage people to take the RSS leap. Because once you take it for one blog, you get it for all, right?