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Most people still don’t get RSS

Fred Oliveira on July 16, 2005

RSS failure While some people are already in the age of “subscription”, others are clearly not. Notice the image on the right. You’ve seen these boxes everywhere, particularly on news websites. These utilitary boxes give you the possibility of printing and emailing some piece of content (usually news items - here’s a news story at the economist that serves as an example). Now, what’s wrong with this picture? Clearly, not thinking about the user.

Why this is wrong

First, nobody cares about these boxes. When you want to print some content off of a news piece, you usually do try and find them, but that’s the only case. Do you ever use the “Email this” link? My best bet is on a round “no”, because you might as well grab the URL and send that instead, right? So what does this make of that box? A useless fixture floated on a news piece, that nobody gives a damn about.

Now, in this case in particular, the Economist (that again serves as an example amidst many many other websites with the same problem) has added an “RSS feeds” link. How does that help anyone who reads the Economist online? I mean, the few people who know what an RSS feed is do “get it”, but for everybody else (95% of the readers of the economist) that means “computer gibberish”.

Embrace the subscription

What *is* an RSS feed? Nothing but a means to subscribe to your content. Embrace that. Cut the “RSS Feed” link and change that to “Subscribe”. Add a link to a page where it explains what a feed is, how to read subscribed content, what good applications are out there on the market in order to read that content.

Take that link from your useless box-of-all-trades and get it somewhere where people will actually look. Advertise your subscribed content. Make it news-worthy - now all your readers can get your content even without opening a browser window! It is a shame that people realize the technology exists, but don’t put it to real use. A few changes on webpages mean a whole lot for both you, your users, and the web as a whole.

And remember that publishing RSS feeds doesn’t mean lack of revenue, just because people won’t be looking at your ads on webpages. There’s other obvious ways to profit from RSS feeds if you’re a publisher, but that’s another post right there. Now start changing those damn webpages.


Comments on this post

Jared Christensen

I will be looking foward to “other obvious ways to profit from RSS feed”. The company I work for only thinks in terms of ad revenue and I would hate to see them stick ad’s in the RSS fees when we finaly get some RSS feeds :)

Mario Bali Indonesia

It is sad to see feeds from news channels, giving me all the info I want except the front page. Now how’s that? So I still have to click on the main URL in my favorite folder to get the main page. And see that’s where I want to read the first head lines.

Casey Gollan

Where do you get “nobody cares about these boxes”?

I see where you’re coming from, but you need to consider people who aren’t great with technology. I know people who don’t know how to copy a link from the address bar and paste it into an email. The type of people who type their destination URL into the google search box, every single time.

You can’t go so far as to assume that the boxes are worthless without looking at the audience. Surely the average reader of a large news site has some internet experience, but you cannot always expect them to know how to do simple tasks.

The priority should not be to get rid of these boxes, but to rewrite them so that they are understood by everyone, and placed where they will be convenient to those who need them and less distracting to those who don’t.

Personally, I feel the Economist doesn’t do a bad job of it. The exception being the RSS link which should read “Subscribe”, and have a link to more information.

fred

Casey:

Have in mind that my point wasn’t to pick at those who don’t have internet experience. Clearly I should have explained a little more why I believe those boxes are “worthless”. You hit the nail in the head when you say “The priority should not be to get rid of these boxes, but to rewrite them so that they are understood by everyone”.

That’s exactly right. The problem with the design on those utilitary boxes is that they’re poorly designed (this is not a problem of the Economist, this is a problem of most news websites). They are not in a key location where people focus (remember human vision does movements down and across - these boxes are usually on the upper right corner), and their purpose isn’t clearly stated.

Notice that this is deviating from the point that the addition of RSS to those boxes is wrong, but I believe I should make this point clear. Those utility boxes should be redesign and brainstormed thinking exactly about the kind of people you are talking about.

Most of my family members (of older generations, mostly) aren’t as IT-aware as I might be or you might be, and this is a concern for me too. In general, those boxes are a design problem, a pitfall. In particular, the new RSS links around the web are yet another one.

It all comes down to thinking about the audience - which clearly most websites don’t. Thanks for posting your comment, or I wouldn’t be exposing these ideas further, and they obviously were lacking decent clarification.

Bill

What about when every other site on the web refers to them as “RSS feeds” and you’re the only one calling them “Subscriptions”. I see your point, but unless the change is widespread & done quickly, we may be stuck.

Mario

See that’s the big trick behind all. Just sit there behind your screen pretending your a (Dutch) cow (Me)… If I go back in time, all those years on the Internet (and before that Bildschirmtext DL, Videotext, Minitel FR) I’ve seen it all and wondered many times what the hell do they mean with (now) shouts as RSS (older people get in one flash 1940-1945) a new political movement? RSS Feed… New food for the cows? Even today millions of people igonere these shouts, and i know it as I’m asking around about it.
You know how many people never heard of IP or IE or XP or OS????
Yes all of us Internet Junks or peope involved on a daily base in doing business on the Internet know (do they know?) what RSS means, and that’s it. The rest of the world just doesn’t know and doesn’t want to know.

It is going to be weird Google patenting (or trying to do so) ads throug RSS, so who is interested in yet another way again of getting tons of ads on the screen?

Live bookmarks, feeds… You know what? Just normal people surfing the web want to start at the beginning of a page, the home page, not jumping from a live bookmark to somewhere in the middle of a Webbreakstuff. Maybe thats a good discussion again for all designers out there, make every page your home page! People feel lost if they enter in the middle of your magazine. Why you think Magazine Covers are so important? The cover sells not a somewhere in between page! You know how many people still don;t know anyway how to store a link in their browser? Bookmarks, Favorotes…. “Never heard of it I just type http://www.webreakstuff.com or click a link…”

It needs much much more as just an icon on the screen telling RSS.

Rikkye

You mean the image on the left.

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