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How many on here us RSS?

  • Thread starter Scottish Business Owner
  • Start date
Scottish Business Owner

Scottish Business Owner

New Member
How many on here use RSS?

As we develop our blog i'm starting to wonder how many people on here actually use RSS and things like iGoogle to get all the information they need into one space?

Does most people on here know what RSS is and how it can benefit them?
Do some people not like RSS? What's your reasons?

Fundamentally i'm looking to see if tracking rss subscribers is a useful way of seeing how popular the blog is.

As another thought would people prefer email updates to RSS? :)
 
PC

PC

New Member
I don't subscribe to any RSS feeds as I can't see the point of it. Its yet another way of filling up your inbox (if you use an email client to read) or clutter up the favourites folder (if you use a Brwser to read it).

I don't use iGoogle either as I'm slowly beginning to realise that Messrs Google know far too much about me.

They know:

1. The websites that I visit from their search engine.
2. How many times I've visited each website.
3. Where I am and what I'm doing through their calendar.
4. How my business is doing through their Analytics.
5. Who and how often people visit my website through the tracking code embedded in my (and the rest of the worlds) websites.
6. Where my business is (Google maps).

Google use to have a nice cuddly feel to it but nowadays I'm beginning to realise that its become a data-hungry monster and we are all inadvertently feeding it every day, making it bigger.

Google rant over.... back on topic now!
 
polr

polr

New Member
Yeah I subscribe to a few using igoogle to read but I'm pretty lax about remembering to sign in and check. When I do think to do it though it does save time without having to trundle through loads of different sites.
 
F

findnetworkingevents

New Member
This is something I have been thinking about myself.

I had planned to offer my events on an RSS feed but I had wondered if people would actually use it and whether it was actually worth it!

I think it's easy to get distracted by new technology, you can feel like everyone else is using it except you and that if you don't then your business is doomed!

Stuart
 
fantasycouriers

fantasycouriers

New Member
I want to.

And when i understand it, i probably will do.
 
Power Lunch Club

Power Lunch Club

New Member
Okay, okay....for the uninitiated here about RSS...which is probably just me....what is RSS:eek:

Gordon
PLC
 
Idea15

Idea15

New Member
I get annoyed at sites that don't have RSS, and I'm definitely more inclined to visit sites that do.

I run them through my Thunderbird so new info automatically comes in.
 

alanbold

New Member
Im totally into RSS and read SBF using RSS, when i open my browser it opens my homepages as 6 tabs, one of which is my google reader page. From there I can quickly see any new posts on the RSS feeds ive subscribed too. I just find it really easy and quick. I wouldnt measure the success of your blog by the number of subscribers as many people just dont know about it or get it yet and will visit your site the conventional way. I think it will catch on though as more and more people interact with the internet through mobile devices as RSS I find is really really useful on my iphone. Good luck with the blog.
 
I

inkmaxhk.com

New Member
Yeah I subscribe to a few using igoogle to read but I'm pretty lax about remembering to sign in and check. When I do think to do it though it does save time without having to trundle through loads of different sites.

That's what I do.:)
 
Tim Barlow

Tim Barlow

New Member
I love it!

  • It's 100% spam proof
  • Allows me to be anonymous as long as I want to be
  • Provides an easy separation of my industry news from my day to day e-mail

I feel it is essential to offer it, even if you are not a fan. I am sure it will become much more common place in due course.

I have iGoogle as my home page now with a reader gadget in it. I have separate gadgets for my favorite feeds.
 
Amber

Amber

New Member
I am totally reliant on RSS. I subscribe to a couple of hundreds of feeds (most work-related, some personal) and there's just no way I could keep up with all of those sites without it.

In terms of blogging, I think it's essential to publish feeds. People expect it now, and the number of subscribers you have is used by people like advertisers and investors to try and gauge what your reach is, and how successful the blog is. A lot of professional bloggers concentrate their efforts on converting new subscribers rather than simply increasing traffic - the subscribers are the people who are reading you every day, and are really valuable to a blog. Of course, you can get people to subscribe by email too, but I don't think it hurts to offer RSS as well if you're going to be offering email anyway. We have both on some of our blogs, and the feeds have a lot more subscribers than the email updates do!
 

Brian McIntosh

New Member
I do without knowing. I checked my RSS box in Outlook last night and there were feeds from 2 different sites. I must have clicked the feed link some time ago and forgot about them. All the while the feeds were being kept by Outlook without my knowledge. Anyway, i clicked on a few of them and they were excellent. I'll be using more in the future. The only downside with using outlook is it doesn't tell you when a new feed is ready to read.
 
Neil

Neil

New Member
I pick up rss feeds using my flock browser and read them in google reader. This saves me loads of time as I can quickly get through lots of forums and blogs on my topics without having to go to each one individually. If anything takes my interest I can follow it up and look at the original site.
 
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