Google Moves to Mainstream RSS With A Simple Name Change
For all its supposed simplicity, Really Simple Syndication or RSS has continued to confuse and intimidate millions of people online years after its introduction. What can be done to make RSS more mainstream? Google plans to roll out a small but simple feature that could go a long way. We wouldn't be surprised to see every blog publishing service follow suit.
"Follow this blog" is a clear call to action and those words will soon grace the header of every blog on Blogger.com around the web. When users click that link they'll be taken to either a tab on their Blogger dashboard, presumably if they have an account and are logged in, or be introduced to Google Reader, the company's RSS reader. It's a simple, brilliant plan and we wonder what took so long.
What it Will Look Like
As this new feature is rolled out over the coming weeks, it appears that users will be brought to three key screens.
Blogger users will now see a mini version of Google Reader in their dashboards.
Apologies for the blurry pic, that's what Google posted.
Google Reader users will get a new folder for "blogs I'm following," and new users will apparently be shown Common Craft's fabulous 1 minute introduction to Google Reader.
Why It Matters
RSS is life and work changing technology. It's what makes an ecosystem of blogs possible by lowering the investment required by readers to follow and support a larger number of blogs than they would visit manually. It's what keeps those podcasts coming after you might have forgotten to download episode after episode. It makes search an ongoing practice instead of a one-off shot in the dark. RSS is huge, but the name alone intimidates many people who ought to be diving into it.
Surveys over the years have offered a wide range of estimates of the extent of mainstream RSS adoption. We know, though, that many many people do not ever use the technology.
"Follow" is clear language that we expect to go over well. It aims at the long held goal of getting people to use RSS without asking them to embrace the acronym. Update: Several people have argued since we posted this that "follow" will be far more clear to young users of social media sites like Facebook than to older users. Do you think "follow" is still too unclear? We think it's pretty good, but let us know in comments or the poll on the right.
We expect that Blogger.com blogs will see a big increase in subscribers following this change and we would not be at all surprised if other blogging platforms, Wordpress in particular, roll out "follow" language and links soon if the Google move is well received.
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"Follow" is indeed clearer language -- clearer than "subscribe" I think -- especially as we move beyond desktop-based RSS readers to just having friends or contacts online... it's also less weighty to "unfollow" someone, rather than "unfriend them". And, it abates the whole overloading of the "friend" terminology.
+1 from me. This should definitely be something we use in DiSo.
Posted by: factoryjoe.com
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August 28, 2008 9:26 AM
Such a simple change that could have far reaching impact. Follow is such a simple term for people. We know how to follow. Thanks to Google for taking the lead.
Gives me pause, too, about switching the iterasi blog to Wordpress.
I think "Follow" will make more sense for users who have some experience on the web with sites like facebook etc. "Subscribe" however often clicks with people when i explain the concept of RSS.
I like it. It makes more sense. Hope it makes it easier to explain to people. And interesting that the nomenclature for these actions seems to be spreading from Twitter, FriendFeed, and their ilk.
Posted by: Josh Bancroft
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August 28, 2008 9:35 AM
We'll monitor it, for sure. What I don't like is that it seems* that the "Follow this blog" link is hardcoded to use Google Reader. I'd prefer a more flexible and standards compliant approach. UJS could be used to intercept feed link clicks and give people the option of following in Google Reader or following in their system's default feed reader.
But the "Follow" language is worth considering. I imagine there was some sort of usability testing behind it that found it more approachable than "Subscribe."
*Haven't seen it in action yet, this is just what I've gathered from their screenshots.
Mark - I think you're right and that is cause for concern. There are other RSS readers out there and I wonder if a better solution might be sending people to the feed with that link and then getting FF and IE to offer friendlier follow [subscription] interfaces at that level. It is the Goog though, so they will probably take this opportunity to do the world some good and move closer to total world domination at the same time. Thanks for bringing this up.
Great move by Google!
I made a change similar to this on my blog, but with different wording:
"Get Updates by RSS"
and
"Get Updates by Email"
Two sides of the same coin, but it appears to be increasing my RSS subscribers since I made the change.
No, dumbing it down to "follow" will not make non-geeks adopt it. Proof? Here's a transcript from the Dell support center:
User: "...OK now what?"
Tech: "Just press any key and you're done."
User: "I don't see an 'any' key. Where is it?"
...sure that person will jump all over RSS re-named "follow".
There are two simple ways to address the problem... (And I second Mark's concern):
1. use rel-follow (not a great convention, but something along those lines) to suggest a "followable" link... it could add the blog to Google Reader if you're a GR user (I imagine this would be the default for Blogger members) or you could change it to launch a local application or your own external blog aggregator.
2. In the case of DiSo endpoints, I believe we'll have some kind of callback mechanism that is advertised on your identity provider/data broker that expresses where you maintain your followed sites/contacts/friends. For example, when sign in to Blogger with your OpenID, your follower list would be advertised as a service in your XRDS-Simple (Discovery) profile... If you click a "follow" link, Blogger would send and OAuth request back to your identity provider requesting permission to add the feed to your followed list; should you grant the OAuth token, you'll now be subscribed to updates from that person/blog.
I
Posted by: factoryjoe.com
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August 28, 2008 10:18 AM
I think this is a good development. As a recent adopter of RSS through Google Reader i can understand the confusion for other people not familiar with RSS. It's revolutionised the way i use the internet. However i'm finding it hard trying to convert my friends on the joys of RSS. This could make it mainstream.
Susbcribe has connotations of payment for some (Subscribe to this magazine for only...). Follow is a bit less intimidating, but honestly the difference between the two will not matter much. It's the actions that happen after someone clicks on the Follow/Subscribe link.
If you give someone a choice or RSS readers... what happens if they don't have one? Right... they close the page. Too much overhead. Remember the call to action was not "Hey, figure out what RSS reader you want, then create an account with it and then come back here and hit Subscribe..." The call to action was "Follow... " The verbiage has never been the issue, it's been the chain of actions required to actually follow the feed for first time subscribers.
Oh and
"In the case of DiSo endpoints, I believe we'll have some kind of callback mechanism that is advertised on your identity provider/data broker that expresses where you maintain your followed sites/contacts/friends. For example, when sign in to Blogger with your OpenID, your follower list would be advertised as a service in your XRDS-Simple (Discovery) profile..."
That would be why we're still challenged. I get that it's not an explanation meant for the public at large... but jeez, man, could you make the process a wee bit MORE intimidating?
WE continually ignore the fact that most people are not into managing social graphs etc. No one, NO ONE adopts RSS. They take actions like following blogs. The tech industry makes this mistake over and over again... you have to explain why people should care about something in terms that relate to what they want to do. People take about the widespread adoption of HTML... but HTML wasn't adopted by the public, the ability to see information in a browser was. Same with RSS... none of my friends care about the protocol whatsoever. They see a way to keep up with a lot of blogs in a streamlined way. If they care about that and if the process of doing it is low friction they'll subscribe to or follow a feed. If it's not, the underlying technical details won't matter to them.
I know Tumblr did this before Google, albeit not connected to an external RSS feed reader...
http://www.tumblr.com/
I know Tumblr did this before Google, albeit not connected to an external RSS feed reader...
http://www.tumblr.com/
Excellent analysis, Chris. For years I've railed against the implied obligations of the "Friend" terminology and then when it switched to "follow" I didn't even notice that I'd finally gotten my wish. We are free at last!
Posted by: Daniel J. Pritchett
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August 28, 2008 10:36 AM
I like it! I am sure Google has done a lot of UI tests and found it to be more effective, or they wouldn't roll it out. Does this mean YouTube is going to change from "Subscribe" to "Follow"???
At Mefeedia, we have received lots of feedback from "mainstream users" that "Subscribe" is confusing. It makes people think that they have to pay for subscribing to a video feed - believe me, it is one of the most common emails we receive (asking if the subscribe service is free)! May "follow" Google's lead...:)
Very good move by Google. I have been perplexed for a while now on RSS not moving into mainstream adoption.
RSS is such a huge part of my everyday life I cannot live without it.
Its great to see one of the big boys helping push it into the mainstream.
Coincidentally I'm sure, I made the following comment a few months ago on a Mashable post titled RSS Needs a Simple Button:
"I watched a great short video the other day explaining RSS in plain English and pictures - by the guys over at CommonCraft. The "What is RSS?" link should link to that. "
I thought Facebook would do something like this to mainstream RSS...still can't believe they haven't integrated "real news" into profiles
Posted by: Ethan Bauley
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August 28, 2008 11:35 AM
You're right Marshall RSS is huge. Any way that the barrier to entry is lowered will greatly increase peoples ability to access information. Likewise by increasing peoples access to the information readership will increase significantly across the board.
RE Mark + factoryjoe :
Nothing new needed. No new syntax or codez or standards, just the new (and awesome) UI concept. Browsers (all major ones anyway) already handle feeds sanely, and present you with subscribe options and a (better all the time) UI on seeing one. Just make the follow link go to the RSS feed and use the same rel=alternate type=application/rss+xml we do today.
I've been using a Finnish translation of "follow" for years, since it's hard enough to translate "RSS" into anything - and that's before having to explain what it actually does.
Or, you can just use Alefo.com, this new application enables to take any portion from a website and have it as a live widget (site shot) on your personal Alefo page. This is the simplest way to aggregate content, the next generation of RSS if you want.
I've been saying for a while that "follow" is the word, acceptable to gramps because he's always followed the news and acceptable to l33t g33k because sexy twitter brought it back.
Who are these alleged users that are struggling to use RSS? I don't know a single person who hasn't instantly grasped what it is and how to use it (either within a reader, as a syndication method for their blog, or otherwise). Compared to - say, configuring a wireless router in a home network - RSS is incredibly easy and intuitive. This alleged "difficulty of RSS" seems like a straw man argument for Google to put a stake in the ground for a new technology they wish to implement and nothing more.
Travis: I disagree. I know a lot of people, including many computer savvy people, who don't "get" the advantages of RSS - to their own detriment. I know a lot of my readers who visit my sites manually each day (and we're talking technical sites) and they say that they wouldn't remember to keep using a reader (yet somehow they remember a laundry list of sites they want to check out!)
In any case, I think if something would help promote the whole subscription / RSS system, it'd be if Facebook supported it out of the box. The easier it is for someone to "follow" our sites and have that content appear in their stream in Facebook, the better. Friendfeed isn't going to be it, I'm afraid, it's a power-user only club.
Creating a non-tech savvy RSS reader should be their first step...
Next step is to connect Orkut (+OpenSocial +Lively) with Blogger such as Wordpress is going social with its plugins. Don't you think?
Next step is to connect Orkut (+OpenSocial +Lively) with Blogger such as Wordpress is going social with its plugins. Don't you think?
This is very good news! Any name with a potential to proliferate must be self-explanatory and obvious. RSS had three words all of them ambiguous and in need of explanation.
Posted by: Hayk Hakobyan
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August 29, 2008 5:15 AM
Great. No more feeling uncomfortable about friending, unfriending and - Just Do Not Follow!
Posted by: Marcus Schroefel
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August 29, 2008 8:10 AM
'Follow this blog'... wow, am I the only one amazed at the growing power and influence of Twitter? Clearly Twitter/FriendFeed have blazed the trail for using this language to make their adoption as easy as possible, and now Google are following (!) suit because they know it works. I for one am quite happy to see someone else beating Google to an idea and them following suit, for a change!
till not interested in rss ... it is just reader's digest in e-form .. a relentless river of boring .. not nearly as good as my intuition, manually enabled or not
Small and simple?
"With a click on the Followers icon, you can browse your followers, see what blogs they write, and read the other blogs they’re following. Now that you know who your Followers are, you can show them off by adding the Followers gadget to your blog’s sidebar."
So suddenly, what blogs I'm reading is public information? Looks as if there's a lot more than just a "simple name change" going on here.
Intresting turn of events. The Swedish blogreader http://bloggkoll.com has had the same approach for almost a year and we've been really succesful getting non-tech people to use our service.