Hey, Follow Me!
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I did all the requisite reading and surveyed the top blogs before launching this one a few months ago, and for the most part, I am pleased with the success, except for one facet. My visitor traffic is growing, and so is my Twitter following, but my RSS following seems to plateau more frequently and stubbornly.
So yesterday, I turned to my Twitter friends for advice and got lots of feedback, mostly consistent:
@ashishjain – I think people (including myself) are moving away from feeds and towards twitter. Simpler.Faster. Can dig deeper if needed.
@jtouts – I wonder if Twitter is killing RSS bcuz we tweet our posts as soon as they are live?
@scottcrussell – no one uses rss anymore…
@scottcrussell – Twitter personalizes the blog feed. Rss just mounts up. Rss mainly used for torrents now.
@AlexCuse – maybe people don’t need the feed if they are getting the links via Twitter?
@christopherscot – honestly, since being more active on twitter, i haven’t logged into my feed reader once…maybe ppl just prefer short/sweet?
@jeffporten – It’s not Twitter, it’s that RSS feeds more data than humans can handle. Adding new feeds is a diminishing return.
@albanoalfredo – social networking, (twitter and facebook) and blog reading is exploding. RSS feeds not yet, still a “geek” thing
@ckrewson – Twitter vs RSS – old school geeks vs. new.
@anonymoustom – I think the general public still doesn’t ‘get’ RSS.
@ColonelCrockett – the more accessibility methods you have the less traffic each one gets
@timflaherty – does anyone really use feeds? I’m finding e-mailing content to be a way users are still more comfortable receiving a feed…..
@georgebounacos - Am assuming that your feed stats dove like everyone else’s b/c Twitter & Facebook are the now places. I live outside DC, but if I go downtown 2x/month, it’s big. Same with feeds. I can follow people who blog here & deep div
There were a couple of contradictors and follow-ups, but for the most part, everything pointed to Twitter, though I should concede that this impromptu survey asked nobody but Twitterers for input.
@Tuttel - Slightly predictable outcome…. <grin>
10 Comments
February 18th, 2009 at 3:04 pm
i don’t use feeds even though i have three podcasts. do you think podcasts are dead?
February 18th, 2009 at 3:08 pm
With all due respect to those who point to Twitter on this issue, I submit that an RSS feed commits you to reading the blog regularly. When you register for it you’re saying, wow, I just gotta have more of this, I cannot miss another post by this person, even if it means staying up later every night. That’s a HUGE commitment.
In short, your RSS subscribers are your true customers, your inner circle. Are they not enough for you, do you feel the need to widen your inner circle? Or would it be more rewarding to deepen your relationship with them? You have many options.
February 18th, 2009 at 3:15 pm
Ever since I joined Twitter, my Feedbruner has been going up. I point to my posts, some people like ‘em, then subscribe (I guess). Note that in Québec, 6% of the people use RSS (!!!) and probably less than 1% uses Twitter.
It all depends on who you target of course.
But I don’t think RSS is dead yet. It’s still much easier to follow someone’s posts through Netvibes or Google Reader than to follow up on tweets. Simply because I’m not subscribed to 200 blogs, I read about 20. But I do follow 180+ twitterers, and I can’t follow :\
So the combination blog + RSS + Twitter is still a killer trio IMHO.
My 0,02$
February 18th, 2009 at 3:49 pm
The question is if right now Twitter is just hot or if some form of micro-blogging is more mobile-ready than feed readers will be in the future. …We’ll be getting our news information on the go, but through a blogging platform of sorts or dedicated feeds, I don’t know.
February 18th, 2009 at 3:54 pm
Directed here indirectly by Dan Levy: Twitter’s a more personal RSS feed. A system with an integrated Twitterfeed/desktop client/mobile client would get all content broadcast and discussion fostered most efficiently, beyond RSS.
Also: RSS readers simply cannot handle Twitter’s volume, and/or interactivity. I use Google Reader to keep up with about 30-40 different feeds, often have 300+ posts in it, and use it to pick out the ones I want to read so I don’t miss anything, which frees up time to do things like comment here and read Twitter.
For plain blog-reading, RSS is better, but I think RSS has far less buzz and near-basement understanding beyond the geek base; Twitter’s got a “cool factor” that has propelled it past RSS. I think I’ll continue to use both, because I have a system that works for me, but I prefer Twitter.
February 18th, 2009 at 3:58 pm
Great feedback, thanks for sharing! I’ve also moved some of my energy from RSS to Twitter, but hadn’t realized it.
February 18th, 2009 at 7:39 pm
Yesterday, I got a lot of response when pondered why my RSS traffic has been so flat, & thought it might be worth sharing: http://is.gd/k0lp
February 18th, 2009 at 7:42 pm
RT @JimMacMillan: I got a lot of response when asked why RSS traffic has been flat & thought it might be worth sharing: http://is.gd/k0lp
February 18th, 2009 at 7:44 pm
the death of RSS? http://tinyurl.com/ddtc72
February 18th, 2009 at 7:51 pm
RT @hughmcguire the death of #RSS? http://tinyurl.com/ddtc72 <- Not IMO. RSS still best for news I can’t miss.