2007 Will Be A Big Year For RSS
With Microsoft's IE7 just around the
corner and the other big Internet companies upgrading key information management
products, 2007 is going to be the 'make it or break it' year for RSS. Fergus Burns noted
these 4 key platforms, which are all set to ramp up over the next 6-12 months (my notes
added):
1. IE7
from Microsoft + RSS integrated into Outlook 2007.
2. MySpace
Widget Platform - potentially a new generation of "RSS Consumers".
3. Yahoo
Mail - RSS integrated in 'Beta' version.
4. Google
Reader release - RSS reading functionality will probably be integrated into Gmail.
What these 4 things have in common is that all will reach a mass audience in 2007.
Microsoft and RSS
Despite the issues with RSS
implementation in IE7 which Marshall Kirkpatrick rightly pointed out - and Dave Winer agreed with - IE7 still represents a major
milestone for RSS. It will almost certainly be the most used browser in the world within
12 months (unless Firefox pulls something out of the hat with v 2.0 - and early reports are that it won't). RSS is a new and highlighted feature of IE7, so it will give a major push to
mainstream RSS adoption. Will it merely be seen as "a minor improvement over bookmarks"
by IE7 users,
as Dave Winer suggests? Perhaps, but even so there is more to come from Microsoft in
regards to RSS.
Perhaps the real tipping point for RSS in Microsoft products will be when it is integrated with Outlook, which is slated to happen in Office 2007. As it states on the official Outlook 2007 Overview page:
"Work with RSS Subscriptions from within Office Outlook 2007. You can now fully subscribe to and interact with Really Simple Syndication (RSS) feeds right from Office Outlook 2007, the most natural place to manage this kind of information. It’s easy to get started adding RSS feeds using the RSS Subscriptions home page within Office Outlook 2007."
Either way, you can't argue that Microsoft isn't doing its bit to push RSS into the mass market.
RSS integrated into Email
RSS Reader integrated with email
In other email platforms, as I've mentioned before I think once Yahoo Mail Beta goes live (probably sometime in 2007) then RSS will reach another huge user base. Yahoo Mail has 250M + users and RSS is integrated within the mail inbox in Yahoo Mail Beta, enabling you to check your favorite RSS feeds at the same time as checking your email. It's no accident Yahoo chose to implement RSS in the inbox - everybody uses email, so by adding RSS into the mix Yahoo is making it easy for mainstream people to adopt RSS reading as a daily habit.
The same I think will apply to Google, once (if?) they implement RSS reading into Gmail. They've already started down that path by re-designing Google Reader to mimic the Gmail interface.
As a sidenote, I'll also be following closely what Google does with GData and Google Base, which both use RSS and its variant Atom.
The Widget Factor
Finally, MySpace really does hold most of the cards in the developing widget war - because it is the biggest platform by far for widgets, not counting the mass populace of independent blogs (which only compares to MySpace numbers in aggregate). A lot of widgets are powered by RSS, or a variant of it. So MySpace is going to be one of the key RSS platforms in 2007 - and how they manage this platform will be keenly watched.
Any way you look at it, 2007 is shaping up to be a BIG year for RSS!
RSS shoes photo by esdaniel
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It will be a big year for RSS providing people provide fullfeeds!! http://www.fullfeeds.com/
(I subscribe to your full feed, so it is not you I am having a go at :) )
Posted by: Lee | October 10, 2006 4:34 PM
I'm a big believer in full feeds - aka my first class citizen of content theory. However unfortunately the business models for content on the Web still revolve around page views. Until that changes more (the likes of Feedburner is moving things along), a lot of people will still use excerpt feeds.
Posted by: Richard MacManus | October 10, 2006 4:46 PM
I think it's a whole lorra RSS myself really...
Posted by: Juha | October 10, 2006 5:31 PM
The funny thing is, that although it might be a little counter-intuitive, full feeds actually increase page views! If you didn't provide full feeds, I wouldn't have visited your site after the first read. Because you have a full feed, I have been here three times today! (and have browsed around too)
If you syndicated partial feeds or no feeds at all, I would have forgotten about your web site a long time ago, even though your content is good.
Posted by: Lee | October 10, 2006 5:55 PM
It is good to note that on Webwag.com you can search inside the sites and blogs you trust, since our search technology helps you to search inside your Webwag and returns then first results from your "personal wide web" .
This provides a unique personal search experience.
Posted by: Franck Poisson | October 10, 2006 7:17 PM
RSS Feeds will finally hit the mainstream! I'd like to see more low-end sites implementing feeds, and surely they will need to as competition increases. Util every site has a good CMS, I guess you can always Create RSS Feeds from HTML.
Posted by: monk | October 10, 2006 11:42 PM
So many sites don't realize the value in RSS yet by not providing a feed of their data.
Posted by: Jav | October 11, 2006 12:58 AM
I always finding that small orange icon on sites that I like. RSS is great source of informations, probably lot more than over-hyped digg, del.icio.us...
Posted by: Scaly | October 11, 2006 1:53 AM
The next version of Apple's Mail - the one featured in the upcoming MacOS X 10.5 - will also bring RSS to the mailbox.
Also coming in 2007.
Posted by: dinis | October 11, 2006 2:54 AM
RSS implementation is getting really hot on the heel. I expect more to be implemented on the mobile side as well, i.e. podcast.
Posted by: Keith | October 11, 2006 3:41 AM
Good points re Apple and mobile - both are important too of course!
Posted by: Richard MacManus | October 11, 2006 4:25 AM
Richard,
"First class citizen of content" theory is a great point. I'll definately think about it. Hope to see more posts about it from your blog.
Posted by: Hu Dou | October 11, 2006 5:51 AM
RSS is a great way to Blogging to Fame… as it increases your visibility and credibility together. Feedburner.com is a good site to generate feeds that are meant for all aggregators.
Posted by: Divya Uttam | October 11, 2006 7:17 AM
2007 could very well be the year for mainstream adoption of RSS. So far we are already seeing an uptick in usage of our feeds from beta users and will be compensating to enhance the service further.
http://www.newslookup.com/Feeds/
Posted by: Michael Kynast | October 11, 2006 8:35 AM
Agree, read more.
http://www.watchmojo.com/web/blog/?p=530
Posted by: ashkan karbasfrooshan | October 11, 2006 8:44 AM
Hey get video and podcasts in RSS today in Outlook. Our reader supports Outlook and Express. www.inclue.com like a podcatcher/rss reader.
We also let publishers preload feeds into the inclue! media inbox and give it away preloaded. great for newbies.
Posted by: nick gogerty | October 11, 2006 10:44 AM
I showed my father how to use RSS on Firefox last night and he was amazed at how simple it was to use. He also commented on how intuitive and useful news feeds could be. I couldn't imagine life without them that's for sure.
Sickr
Posted by: Sickr | October 11, 2006 11:00 AM
I have been using the beta version of Outlook 2007. I'm not too fond of the RSS feature in Outlook. Maybe it is because I'm a creature of habit and it is just easier for me to go to my Bloglines account that I have had for 2 years. I'm sure there are better readers out there, I just haven't given any of them a chance.
As far as publishing full feeds goes, I don't do it. I publish a summary feed only because I got tired of finding my content on other people's blogs. So, I'm publishing summary feeds and if people want to read a full article, they'll have to click through to my blog. I have never understood why this is such a big deal.
Posted by: JLP at AllFinancialMatters | October 11, 2006 8:34 PM
MySpace will be irrelevant. You can't put JavaScript or Flash with links to the outside world on MySpace.
Posted by: Tom Morris | October 12, 2006 3:33 AM
I agree Tom... unless MySpace reverses that stupid policy.
Posted by: Richard MacManus | October 12, 2006 4:41 AM
IE7 will spell problems for RSS. Because advertising comes from a source other than the publisher, it will present the same problem it as it does for browsers. You never know when an ad will come packing a malicious payload. With Microsoft's history of exploits, I cannot with good conscience trust them with that responsibility. At the very least, if the feed reader is a web browser, the exploits can be patched. I don't trust these little RSS Reader applets to keep up with what will surely be a firestorm once RSS gains popularity. MySpace? Feh.
Using RSS readers that lock feeds down to a specific location is stupid, whether it is a browser, mail client, or dektop app. Unless the same feeds list can be accessed from home, office, and PDA, making sure that articles that are marked as read in one location are not repeated in another, users are not saving time with RSS. Web based readers like MonkeyChow support all of the above. I applaud Google's RSS Reader team for making this possible. They have more work to do on the mobile side, but they are headed in the right direction. Yahoo Mail may be a contender, but they have serious issues with speed in that interface.
Posted by: Ernie Oporto | October 12, 2006 11:44 AM
Gmail already sort of has RSS feeds, they call them
Web Clips.
Google Reader is too slow for me. I use Bloglines, also because, as Ernie Oporto said above, RSS reading should be possible from multiple locations, without reading redundancy.
I personally don't think integration into Outlook will be a big thing. Almost everyone (students) I know uses webbased email. Maybe work related RSS reading will be done through Outlook.
Google Reader for Mobile
Bloglines Mobile
Posted by: Niels | October 12, 2006 5:50 PM
Correct link for Mobile Bloglines (which I read mobile and on PC)
Bloglines Mobile
Posted by: Niels | October 12, 2006 5:51 PM
Great article. I think too it will be a big year.
Posted by: Nico | October 13, 2006 3:02 PM