RSS is Quickly Dying, Twitter is Replacing It
I realize I might receive disagreement from some, but these are the ways I see RSS subscriptions and Twitter followings growing or evolving.
The past few years have been great for bloggers. Finally, they’ve been able to receive some form of a reward for their work, even though the traditional media still feels that they [we] should but shut up. Traffic grew, regular/return readership rates increased, and blogs saw success in many ways. Bloggers went onto bigger things, as they outgrew their small blog, and there are many bloggers that are making a full-time income, or more from their writing and work.
The Problem with RSS
A growing problem with RSS is that it is an acronym and thus a reason most people do not really understand it. Go up to anyone and ask them what RSS stands for or what it is used for, any you’ll likely see some confused expressions. Ask them how to subscribe to a blog, and they’ll also be rather confused.
More people than ever are getting news form blogs, but for the most part, people don’t return to blogs other than by bookmarking the site and/or typing in its address. If they have no need to be updated as soon as an article is published, they won’t have a need for subscribing to it. RSS readers are much like email clients – the users either ignore them completely or constantly monitor them.
Even though I know how to subscribe to and use feeds/RSS/subscriptions, I still “hate” to subscribe to many blogs (unless of course they are really good) because the process is too complicated. There are more than two steps, and this draws users away from using a service. While there may be a link within the address bar of many sites and the feed can automatically be detected simply by entering the address, in some cases, you have to search through the page for a subscription link or worse yet, sign up to the site.
Additional Drawbacks of RSS/Readers
- There are many sites that do not offer full-feed RSS, completely voiding the purpose of RSS and subscribing to a site.
- Blog authors figure they can garner more income from their blog alone, so they don’t look into feed monetization (or use partial feeds).
- RSS isn’t promoted enough, or it isn’t used by enough people (I believe the usage is around 15% or so), only bloggers and people who find a use for it.
- There’s absolutely no interaction unless you add value to the footer of your feeds (not really that ideal).
The Benefits of Twitter (Versus RSS)
Don’t get me wrong. Twitter can sometimes be a pain to monitor, especially if you are following a lot of topics or people, but it can also provide a better option for you in the promotion of your site.
Much like a landing page or stream for your blog, using Twitter to promote and stream your articles can be great for both you and your readers. Clicking one link to your profile and one more to follow you through the service, your readers can subscribe to and follow your updates.
Twitter integrates RSS into your profile for both your tweets and favorites, so you could alternatively publish Twitter tweets into your blog for readers and as another form of promotion.
Many people know what Twitter is. Look at the traffic – Twitter is up 660% versus this time last year, and FeedBurner, the main place where bloggers can create and distribute feeds for their site is down 16% (partially due to the Google transition). Twitter is mentioned multiple times during many news programs, including in newspapers. You’ll rarely ever see an article referencing feeds or RSS within a similar article.
Other Benefits of Twitter
- You can see who exactly is following you and information about them.
- It’s easy to add value for your readers with additional links and thoughts.
- You can follow other people within your industry, and make branding easier.
- Converse with people who may have a question.
- Interact with others easily.
Conclusion
Remember, each of these are single services, although the primary way of your readers to stay updated with your articles. RSS subscriptions may continue to grow, but adoption to Twitter will likely continue to grow at a faster rate than RSS ever will. Both can be monetized, and there are definitely benefits and cons for both.
The main point to think about is how you can integrate each into your site on a regular basis, and how to engage your readers most effectively.
Which method do you prefer for subscribing to your favorite blogs, and why?
I’d say I agree with you on behalf of some people, but probably not everyone. I addressed this in a recent post and came to the conclusion that a lot of people are going to exchange RSS for Twitter as you’re saying, including Robert Scoble. But guys like me want to see every news story, so RSS is still essential.
I think for now the best strategy is to act as though what you’re saying is absolutely right by integrating Twitter into everything, but don’t give up on RSS and publish full feeds.
Brandon Cox´s last blog ..Introducing a Community Blogging Links Feed
Like you said, Twitter certainly works better for those who have more followers, but so does RSS. I’ve noticed more and more sites only publishing partial RSS feeds, or else they make me search for the full feed. This is not the way RSS should work. I can just as easily visit their website directly or go to their Twitter page to discover what they’ve recently published.
Alternative services like Posterous and Tumblr also make it easy for readers to follow you, and some people have used these to create a “lead into” their main post, like a behind-the-scenes look at what went into creating the post.
I’m again on the sidelines. I use a few Wordpress addons to send my blog feeds to Twitter, but in essence my feed subscribers are in turn growing far more quickly than my Twitter following. What’s more there’s no RSS spam (unless you want it lol).
Paul Baines´s last blog ..Art In Progress
As I said in the post, it all varies depending on what type of site you have. For example, I’d rather subscribe to a text-based feed with RSS than Twitter, as I can save it for later reading, compared to Twitter where’s it just a link (and would be easier to bookmark). I guess readers feel the same way with some sites, or else some people haven’t yet adopted to the whole Twitter craze yet.