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Long Live the RSS Reader!

December 5, 2008 BY Mark Evans

This morning, I read a post about improvements made by Google Reader.

The first thought was it is always good to see new features in products that I used on a regular basis. My second thought was whether people use RSS readers with the same passion these days. From my own experience, my use of Google Reader has dipped because I learn about a growing number of blog posts from Twitter.

To get a lay of the land, I did some quick market research – aka posting a question on Twitter – whether RSS readers are still well-loved. Although far from unscientific, the responses suggests RSS readers continue to be used on a regular basis. This isn’t surprising given the growing use of RSS and how people are looking for tools to manage the tsunami of digital content they see every day.

That said, the RSS market needs to evolve. In particular, RSS readers they get smarter and more intuitive so it’s easier to consume content and learn about new sources. This is an area where startups such as PostRank (formerly known as AideRSS) are hoping to exploit.

It is interesting to see Google Reader focus more on usability as opposed to discovery, although making Google Reader more user-friendly for current users and people just starting to discover the world of RSS feeds makes a lot of sense.

More: Webware’s John Lowensohn likes Google Reader’s “cleaner, minimalist look”, particularly the use of “small widget-like enclosures, which users can collapse to take up less space”. The Blog Herald, meanwhile, pans the new Google Reader, calling it a “white mish-mash of boxes”.

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  • http://blog.postrank.com Melanie Baker

    I don’t think RSS readers are ever going to be mass-adopted (and I include specific apps like Google Reader, widget-driven info aggregation sites/apps like Netvibes, and others in that).

    I think there’ll always be plenty of people who simply don’t have information overload, and/or prefer to manage their information in other ways.

    Like Jevon’s post from the other day, I think RSS, like blogs, may evolve to fit into the media landscape differently in the future.

    Certainly one thing we agree on here at AideRSS is that RSS’s future is likely somewhat invisible to the average person. Millions of people keep track of their friends’ comings and goings on Facebook… with no idea that it’s an RSS feed. I think the seamless integration of RSS into more and different aspects of the media landscape has a bright and very flexible future (more so than, say, standalone readers).

    And, of course, our goal is that eventually no one will know or remember that RSS ever existed without PostRank built in. :)

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