Is Social Media Destroying RSS? And Does It Matter Anyway?

Hi Caroline, I dont think social media are destroying the RSS.

Yes, socail media is a very popular channel for communication at the moment, but RSS is a quite different medium. It helps us to organize information and scan a lot of channels at a glance.

I like StumbleUpon, Twitter and Facebook, but what I am reading daily is my RSS reader and your feed is in it. :))

Good luck!
William

William Profet :: OneJobTwoSalaries.coms last blog post..Personal Branding Magazine Issue 4 Available Today

I don’t care Caroline. I’m waiting for some 15 year old to dev the app that puts all of this stuff on one website. It’s getting more difficult for me to keep up. When is web 3.0 coming?

Also, I only subscribe and read blogs in my reader. I only subscribe in my reader if I’m am a dedicated reader and follower of the blog, and tend to read at least 75% of the posts. If a post prompts me to respond, I then click on the header that takes me to the site and I post a response.

All other blogs I discover through the blogosphere, on MySpace or any of the social media sites, I bookmark in my social bookmarking thingy, Delicious. Then, on Friday of that week, I scroll through all these bookmarked blogs and quickly browse through the site to see if it’s something I’m interested enough to where I’d want to subscribe in my Google Reader. It’s a tough and exhausting job but somebody’s gotta do it.

Caroline, I am surprised or rather astonished to know that you only have a dozen feeds in your reader. More because you are a full time blogger and have time in your hands compared to other working bloggers. Now I might get this feeling because I have more than 300 blogs in my Google Reader as of now and it increases daily but again, I think no matter how many number of feeds you have, only the content which is very good catches your eye and you ignore others. Hence it has never taken me a lot of time to go through my feeds.

Now as far as social media destroying RSS is concerned, I think it depends on preferences. Like you said you still read Dosh Dosh in your reader. Similarly inspite of having dozens of hugely popular social media websites out there, the popularity of RSS is actually increasing and RSS could go mainstream in the coming years. Hence I suppose that although both RSS and social media do the job of providing content, RSS gives you more control and customized content.

And you asked about unsubscribing from blogs because you can find them in social media.Well, I think you will agree that only hugely popular blogs like Dosh Dosh dominate the social media. Hence this cannot become a common practice unless ofcourse people decide to follow popular blogs only . But you see thats not true because there are blogs out there with 200, 300 and 1000 subscribers and they cannot be called “immensely popular”. So people have their own preferences and thats when RSS comes into the picture. :)

RSS subscription counts are a nice shorthand to gauge the popularity of a blog when you don’t have stats for PageRank, AlexRank, Technorati Authority, etc., but they shouldn’t be taken too seriously. I’ve never been of the “PageRank doesn’t matter” school, but the fact that someone’s subscribed to a blog doesn’t mean they’re reading it, at least through the feed.

In the article where you called for guest posters, you mentioned that the number of voters to decide whether or not to go ahead with guest posting was extremely small compared to the your total number of subscribers: less than 100 voters, but over 2000 subscribers.

Since subscribing to a feed is basically a one-click process, I’ve always suspected that many if not most subscribers primary read directly through the blog, and use the feed as a fail safe. Or a person marginally interested in a blog adds its feed just in case something interesting comes in, but dumps most of the posts. That’s true with or without social networks

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Hi Caroline,
I think it is a lot to keep up with, when you have 30 subscriptions and then you read the same story plus 3 others from the same blogger on the same social site. I like to keep it simple and get my new content from RSS feeds through my reader. I don’t rely on getting new content from the social sites. I think having presense in the social arena is good for bloggers because they can easily float to the top when their stories are hot and new viewers can get a good glimpse at what that blogger has to offer.

It’s interesting also that you ask “Is social media killing RSS?”, because in a way we’re only witnessing, at least in my opinion, the early stages of web 2.0. There are tons of new ways to do this and that and no one site can do it all or offer all there is to offer. RSS is going to be around for a long time I think, when something else does come along to replace it, it better be something really outstanding. Facebook, Stumble, Digg and everyone else are pretty outstanding social tools, but I doubt they can replace RSS completely. RSS does one thing and one thing only and it does a great job of it.

I think that, as you pointed out, it doesn’t matter. You are still subscribed to DoshDosh, even though you see his content everywhere. I still subscribe to feeds that I visit manually anyway….and really…when it comes down to it…who cares *where* the content is seen, as long as it’s seen, right?

Courtneys last blog post..Three Things that I’m Loving Right Now

Funny thing is that I like to subscribe to the email version of the reader and what I find myself doing is getting off all of the mailing list that I have been on. I love getting a great post delivered to me in my inbox.

So, what I have actually done is replaced my reading of autoresponder (or broadcast) emails with blog content. I get more out of it. I am just so tired of the sales hype.

With most of the blogs I read, I do not get that.

Greg

Greg the Niche Blog Dudes last blog post..Using Video in Online Marketing with Revver.com

Another great post Caroline. Recently, I started using Twitter again, and I’m finding that I rely on it more and more for the latest interesting blog posts and news, plus it is much more interactive so you can keep in touch with friends which RSS doesn’t lend itself to.

I still use Google Reader to subscribe to feeds and review them, but I’m spending less and less time in there, and using Twitter and StumbleUpon to find the latest stuff. I think it will be like many things, RSS doesn’t go away, but some new “channels” open up to give us a more granular view of what’s going on.

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I still think RSS is quite important. Think of it this way…Social marketing is like going into a Newsagents to look at a magazine which has been recommended to you. RSS is what happens when you decide you want to always receive that magazine so you subscribe. Once you’ve subscribed, you never have to think about it again, it just comes to you without prompting.

Of course RSS doesn’t mean that you you will keep those subscribers forever. If the quality and quantity drop off then people will unsubscribe and do.

At this stage I think both technologies are equally important!

Guru Bob

Dear Caroline,

My opinion is that each blogger and reader has his own view on this, and that’s why I’d like to share mine with you, and your blog readers.

#1 - RSS subscribers are like daily unique visitors so do not bother too much about this as like you said there are people who still read the blog even if they did not join the feeds, or the e-mail list.

Just think about it.. there are some people who simply bookmarks the URLs, and read the blog whenever they feel so.. RSS is not used by everybody, so don’t worry.

#2 - I prefer to get more e-mail leads VS rss readers because I could use an important “autoresponder” feature and marketing strategy -> follow-up marketing.

In conclusion, I think that Web 2.0 sites and Social Media is just another platform to make friends, and spread your content all over the web. This is good and bad, depending on how you view it.

*** I see it bad because people look at these services just like another way to get traffic, and they focus solely on this part, forgetting that the human factor and building relationships in these networks is what counts most..

*** I see it good because you get readers and subcribers to your blog from all various sources.

There will be always folks who remove from your blog because they see your content everywhere, that’s good. I don’t care, you shouldn’t either. Can’t please everybody.

Cheers,
Codrut Turcanu - “Succeeding Against All Odds!”

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I care. Being a newbie to blogging with a long, long way to go to even almost feeling comfortable with it. I look forward to the email subscribers to my blog. I for one tend to skim over things or ignore the reader for long periods of time.

Social media. I can’t even imagine spending all that time on twitter or what ever else. For me the quality of the relationships suffer if I spread myself to thin. Just MHO.

Great question, Caroline. :>( Sorry to hear of the passing of your canine pal.

Since RSS feeds are a source of monetizing, we who are monetizing would not want that to go away, right? And we would care, right?

As you can see by me url I am still using a hosted blog at wordpress.com. I am building my content and readership now, and just learning about monetization. So I really appreciate Caroline’s freely sharing of information relevant to monetized blogs.

Do most monetized blogs have advertising in their RSS feeds?

Not only is it good for monetising IN the feed itself, but advertisers looking to spend, still look at the feed count as a factor.

Your post dos raise one other possible question though…should we start figuring a way to put our social media “stats” on our advertising page as well?

Hmm.

Dennis Edells last blog post..Sell More To Your Existing Customers: The Up-sell

@Taffy, I used to do it much like yourself and I found that every week I ended up just adding more and more feeds to my reader! There’s so much stuff out there.

@Abhijeet, I think I have a slightly obsessive compulsive disorder, only minor but it compells me to finish what I have started in terms of reading. I have to really force myself NOT to read something thats in my reader but when I don’t see it, it doesn’t bother me. After months of being overwhelmed by too much reading I found the only way to cut down was to simply eliminate all but the very best and thats where this social media process came in handy.

@Andre, yep I used to save up feeds for later a lot, especially when I was just starting to develop an interest in something new. I saved up all sorts of feeds about Internet Marketing, blogging, software development and so on just so I wouldn’t miss anything but I just had to stop doing that eventually as I simply couldn’t keep up. People like me skew the numbers!

@Greg, yeah email subscriptions are a sub topic that I never even considered because I don’t use it. I do everything I can to cut down on the amount of email I receive hehe!

@Codrut, yes you have hit on a very important note there - when the content gets propagated through social media, user interaction is encouraged more than when it is in RSS form I think so it fosters that communication and relationship building in a way that RSS doesn’t. Maybe thats another reason why I gravitate towards social media.

@Diane, I hadn’t really thought of the subject of monetization. I don’t monetize my RSS feed in any way - at least not directly.

@Dennis, hmmm indeed! That IS an interesting question. Dosh Dosh recently put a post out about his status in many of the big social media sites. But again, I wonder if anybody cares outside of that social media circle?

Caroline,

I am not sure, but I bet the answer is different outside of the IM community. Most of the people I know do not know what RSS is, and they have never heard of Twitter. They only know about Facebook because the mainstream media holds it up as a way to get in trouble on the net.

So, since the IM niche only represents 1% of the net (totally guessing here), I am not sure either stat matters.

To my mom (for example), what matters is google.com and amazon.com.

Regards,
Mark

Mark Masons last blog post..Internet Marketing Podcasts

I believe pretty much anyone looking to blogvertise (no copyright issues I hope lol), especially on smaller blogs will at least know what social media was, yes. Especially after you name them on the page.

Now if you get some ad flunky from from say, staples.com…there might indeed be a probability of “what the hell is a twitter?” :-)

Although at it’s present growth rate, I bet a heck of a lot more people then we think, big or small know what the buzz is about.

Dennis Edells last blog post..Sell More To Your Existing Customers: The Up-sell

Hmm… I’m encouraged to unsub from many blogs when I read this :) .
However, I might miss some chance to be the first stumbler or commentator if I rely on social media to find good content. I do unsub if I don’t find good content from a blogger for a long time, it is less likely they’ll post something useful in the future.

I’d rather say bloggers need to concern with their subscribers amount. Whether they care or not, if they’re making a living from blogging, the number of RSS subscribers is one of the factors supporting their income.

I think online marketing and networking is still pretty segmented. While bloggers live on RSS feeds, the general population doesn’t.

For the general user, information and social networking are two separate things.

As for myself, I like reading posts in a reader. I just skim and comment on a few.

My RSS feeds have become sort of my private library. I have a few feeds I read daily and a few more I try to check on frequently and participate as a community member, but most feeds go into a “whenever” bucket and I dip in there when I have an odd moment.

Twitter has definitely become my watering hole of choice. I see what my pals are doing & thinking about, I click through to the stuff they’re finding interesting, and I let them know what I run across as well. (I should be better about that last one.) And Twitter helps me find fresh stuff–it’s not just the few RSS feeds on my “must-read” list.

I do still keep my RSS feeds, as I don’t have the time to participate in social media as much as I would like, and it’s great having that backup.

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I never thought about how social media could affect RSS subscribers…

I guess I haven’t used them as much as I’m suppose to :(

-Mike

Mike Huangs last blog post..User Friendly Is A Bonus

Even as a technically literate individual (I work as a programmer) I have never felt the need to subscribe to any kind of RSS, and I rarely bookmark a page. Instead I rely on my memory to find the site once again.

Caroline,

I don’t think social media are destroying RSS anytime soon except for some really early adopters. There’s still a huge percentage of adults who are just discovering blogs or don’t know about them at all. For them, it will be a while before the phrase “social media” has any meaning.

Regards,

Kelly

Kellys last blog post..Naomi Dunford’s "I Never Called It a Meme," Meme

I think social media & rss are two different matter.

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Its interesting to see such a diverse range of responses. Everybody uses the Internet to get their information in such different ways - which I suppose is to be expected! It’s also interesting that nobody yet has said they do the same thing that I do :)

Great question AND THANKYOU FOR RAISING IT.
I found I had a Sphinn account that was sitting idle so have added you as a friend and will follow what you are doing there.

You raise an interesting topic. Where do i find the hours in the day to read write, network , twitter as well as develop as you are doing a new line( I used to do Fashion) and stay sane?

Saw on Twitter you had read Michael Losier- great- about to do a LOA put it out there that is fun and scarry- watch this space as they say.
Twitter is amazing as you say- i have written several spontaneuos blog posts based on a tweet. Ihaven’t been game to leave it up all day-YET

Thank you again for thinking out loud

i am interested that you

Hey Caroline,
While I consume quite a few RSS feeds on a regular basis, I’ve not reached that saturation point yet where I feel overwhelmed.

I have to admin though that I do enjoy the twitter.

I’d rather get my scoop straight from the source - I subscribe to dozens (nearly 200 total) RSS feeds so I don’t bother much with scrounging around on social media sites.

Occassionally, I’ll run across something interesting via Digg, but I don’t Digg the article or add the Digger to my friends list or any of that nonsense - no, I go to the originating source, subscribe to the feed, and leave comments if I have anything meaningful to contribute.

In other words, I give my partonage & support to the blogger who actually created the article or post, not some other second-hand source who just Dugg or Stumbled someone else’s stuff.

As a blog author, I know I’d rather have readers directly visiting my site and getting involved there instead of via a social media site where my original context is sorta out of the loop and subject to dozens of re-interpretations.

it would be fun to show the amount of people that follow you on twitter on your blog. i wonder if they have a twitter follower counter that you can embed on your blog.

paul sanchezs last blog post..soloride: @shaxxon not all diggers are just the ones that don’t know what they are doing. what is zeer about? curious :)

Caroline

Great timing with this article because I have been wondering if I should have a major cull back of my RSS Reader. I am very active on stumbleupon and do a bit with Digg so I seem to keep up with most of the bloggers I’m interested in anyway. I think if you make some good friends on social media who have interests like yours, you pretty much have your reading list. I think if I cull back my RSS Reader to bloggers I absolutely do not want to miss, then it will make my reading and more importantly my commenting habits more efficient.

I have also wondered if this is happening a bit because my traffic and Alexa ranking has been steadily improving since the beginning of the year when I really started to blog regularly, but my RSS numbers are stable rather than increasing at the same rate. I find it quite strange…

Anyway, great post and FYI I won’t be culling you and maybe I’ll actually get around to commenting more!

Cheers
Kelly

Kelly@SHE-POWERs last blog post..Choose the Questions for Clay Collins, our first SHE-POWER Man

I don’t think they will become mutually exclusive. There will always be those who are highly clued up on any technology and will use everything available to deliver them content just as they NEED it and then there will be others who are mildly interested in techy widgets and quite like regularly accessing different blogs direct or via another blog (moi) as they WANT it. In conclusion the different types of communities will continue to use all the options available and I don’t think one will suffer overall because it’s based on arbitrary human choice and preference.

Ordinary Internet users don’t use social media sites: they go to Google. I haven’t used Twitter. Time is gold. Twittering can be an enormous waste of time.

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