Keeping Current
(Gary's Portion)
Gary Price October,
2005 Editor,
ResourceShelf.com
Editor, DocuTicker
News Editor, Search Engine Watch
gary@resourceshelf.com
http://www.resourceshelf.com/keepcurrent_il_05.html
or
http://digbig.com/4fbrp
Sorry, No Easy Solution for Time, Effort, and Commitment
LESS RSS? More of
"Something" Else?
Explain RSS?
"The
study (IPSOS/Yahoo) found that only
12% of all users were aware of RSS, and just 4% had knowingly used the
technology for reading feeds from blogs, news sources and other
regularly updated content sources on the web. An interesting twist on
those numbers, however, is that 27% of users actually consume RSS on
personalized start pages without realizing that it's the underlying
technology enabling what they read. Sites such as MyYahoo, MyMSN, and
the Firefox browser with its active bookmarks provide easy access to
regularly updated RSS feeds with little or no effort from users."
Pew
Study: The results show only 9% of those surveyed had a "good
idea" of what
the term RSS means. 65% weren't sure and 26% had never heard of the
term...As the survey's discussion points out, technology terms and
ideas take
time to emerge in the mindset of the general public. However, I [Gary]
often
wonder if the usefulness that so many leading edge types believe that
syndication, feeds, etc. offer are to reach the mainstream, calling it
something other than RSS (as see on on many web sites) might be worthy
of consideration. Of course, the cynical person in me wonders if the
public even cares, will ever care, or really needs to know about RSS
and other tools in the first place. Postscript: Lee Rainie, Project
Director, of the Pew Internet &
American Life Project saw my post and sent along a comment. He writes,
"I think your take on it [the survey] is perfect. It's useful to
remember every once in a while that lots of people don't obsessively
focus on the things that fire the imagination of bleeding edgers."
Let's Get to the Practical
Saving, sharing what you find (FURL, Filangy,
eClips, for Groups and Personal Use
Getting to it BEFORE THE NEWS and Blogging Communities: Web-Site Watcher