Let me put the average user’s experience into perspective for you…

What RSS is Good For
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3 thoughts on “What RSS is Really Good For

  1. I’ve read some bloggers saying that they have hundreds of blog feeds in their reader. I have around 30 and sometimes I think thats too much.

    With regards to RSS count, it’s a quick way of displaying how popular your site is. It can be useful in some respect because it shows bloggers that its worth subscribing to your blog etc…unfortunately a lot of bloggers will only subscribe to blogs with high rss counts. For me, the most important thing a high RSS count does is encourage advertisers to work with you. :)

  2. Kevin, I complete agree with you. RSS readers are a great way to valuate a blog. I like to think of them as a measure of demand.

    What I’m concerned about is that this only really applies to tech/geek oriented blog.
    The average user has no desire to follow more sites than they can reasonably surf in a short period of time. The only time, then, that RSS is going to reach them is when they have a “news aggregator” on their Google, MSN, or Yahoo “home page.”

  3. I agree with that. I got my friend to start using netvibes as he checks a lot of golf blogs and he loved it however most people are still not being exposed to it. I do think its on the increase though. Major sites are starting to place more rss links and even social networking links (for example BBC)

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