Study finds most news sites aren’t doing RSS well
Steve Safran May 4th, 2007
In the distributed media universe, RSS is the way people get their content. The model has changed from “come to our website” to “here - we’ll send you the stories.” Most news sites have RSS feeds now. But a new study by the International Center for Media and the Public Agenda at the University of Maryland finds that very few news sites use RSS well. (No surprise - I’ve spoken with stations that didn’t even know their sites had RSS.) So what the sites are doing is actually turning people away to other resources where they can get a full diet of news. “Rather than RSS, the study found, casual news consumers users should just stick with Google’s Top Stories,” writes E&P.
Adds Michael in comments: “There are markets who have a very large base of viewers who still can’t tell their usb port from a vent in the CPU case. (I’ll pause for the visual). In previous experiences in markets of that size, I’ve found making a demonstrative push for RSS–no matter how detailed your FAQ, how lay your explanation–can confuse enough viewers into thinking they need advanced technical knowledge simply to browse the site. Didn’t stop us from trying to innovate, but it made my hair thin that much quicker.”
10 Comments Add your own
1. Michael Gorman | May 4th, 2007 at 12:39 pm
There are markets who have a very large base of viewers who still can’t tell their usb port from a vent in the CPU case. (I’ll pause for the visual)
In previous experiences in markets of that size, I’ve found making a demonstrative push for RSS–no matter how detailed your FAQ, how lay your explanation–can confuse enough viewers into thinking they need advanced techincal knowledge simply to browse the site.
Didn’t stop us from trying to innovate, but it made my hair thin that much quicker.
2. adm | May 4th, 2007 at 1:36 pm
the thing that drives me nuts is when they provide a one- or two-sentence summary/excerpt of the story instead of the whole thing. then you have to click through.
The WP, TV Newser, and of course the NYT all do this. I wrote to WP and asked them to change this, explaining that their choice to do this means I visit their site and consumer their content LESS often than I would if they just provided the full text in the RSS feed.
the whole point of RSS — or at least one major point of it — is to let your readers aggregate large amounts of info. people who use newsreaders generally do so because they read a lot and newsreaders are very efficient. having to stop your workflow and click through to the source article even though you have no real idea what the story is about or how much info is on the other side is really maddening. don’t believe me? try subscribing to the feeds from a WP columnist and see if you can make any sense of what the point of the column is without clicking through, or get any sense of whether the information contained in that column is either useful or interesting.
3. Brad Linder | May 4th, 2007 at 1:40 pm
I’ve noticed in the last few weeks that the Philadelphia Inquirer’s RSS feeds have gone a bit screwy. While they had been offering their local, national, front page, and other stories via RSS, now all the articles in my reader seem to be a day or so behind the Philly.com website.
The cynic in me thinks they might be trying to convince readers to visit their website where they will interact with advertising. But since they’ve always offered partial stories in their feed, that doesn’t seem particularly necessary.
4. adm | May 4th, 2007 at 1:42 pm
sorry, just have to provide an example. here is the current top item in the WP’s columnist feed for Froomkin:
—
Karl Rove’s Coaching Session
from wp - froomkin by washingtonpost.com
Back on March 5, several top Justice Department officials were summoned for an emergency meeting at the White House. On the agenda: Going over “what we are going to say” about why eight U.S. attorneys had been summarily fired.
—
Ok, so…SO WHAT? I have no idea what this column is about or why I should read it. Why even bother with an RSS feed if all you are going to do is run useless excerpts like this in it?
WP generally “gets” the internet, and is certainly a leader among newspapers in that regard. But as your article suggests, they, too, are doing RSS badly.
5. discreet_chaos | May 4th, 2007 at 2:21 pm
I’m curious adm, primarily because I also serve only 250 characters via RSS on most of my feeds, but why would you visit the site if you had all of the content in your reader?
6. adm | May 4th, 2007 at 7:16 pm
hi discreet,
among other reasons, the same reason i visit this site despite subscribing to the RSS feed: to comment and to see other readers’ comments.
i also visit the WP’s website every few days to read national political news. i don’t subscribe to everything i read…just to the stuff i like to read every day or multiple times per day.
also — and i think i pointed this out in my email to the WP — if the publisher’s are worried about losing ad revenue, plenty of sites include ads in their RSS feeds, and i don’t find them particularly obtrusive. it’s certainly less obtrusive than interrupting your “workflow” to go click through to the site, and then have to click through page 1, page 2, page 3, etc.
7. discreet_chaos | May 5th, 2007 at 2:18 am
Thanks for the response adm!
To be honest and though it doesn’t have a lot to do with the original post, but I’ve been torn about the feed question. Sure, I’d prefer for people to see my ads and though there are sites which include an ad in the feed, I don’t think that I’ve ever clicked one.
Generally, when I’m reading rss feeds, I’m in my newsreader and it’d probably take something super-special or I’d need to be at the end of my session for me to click-out to an ad. Though again, I don’t think I’ve ever done it, while at the same time, I have no problem clicking an ad on an actual blogsite.
Once again, thanks for the response. It’s something I’ve been turning over in my mind for months.
8. Steve Safran | May 5th, 2007 at 8:09 am
This all raises an EXCELLENT point of discussion, and one worth a whole new thread: what level of content do people expect in the RSS feed? The LR feed gives you the whole story. Other sites give the summary paragraph. Others - just the headline.
I like it. Worth a new thread.
9. Kevin | May 6th, 2007 at 6:43 am
If a site doesn’t give me the whole feed I don’t subscribe. Simple as that.
10. Robert | June 11th, 2008 at 4:43 am
Wow!!! Good job. Could I take some of yours triks to build my own site?
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