RSS ? Will It Really Become Mainstream?

I am not one to have New Year's resolutions, but I do plan ahead. As we reached the last quarter of 2004, I decided that 2005 would be, for me, the year of article writing and RSS.

I have kept to my plan, but what has been happening on the RSS front? I have dutifully been using Blogs and RSS throughout 2005 to date. What about everybody else, though? Has this been the year when RSS has taken off?

One thing for sure is that there has been a lot of activity amongst internet marketers. According to Overture, they had 43,947 searches for RSS in April 2005. Out of interest, that compares to 825,674 for internet marketing. It is unlikely that an ordinary consumer would search for RSS; they are interested in the subject rather than the technical delivery term. Over 40,000 searches is high, and I think it is a fair bet that a majority of those will be marketing people trying to get up to speed and trying to understand what all the fuss is about.

One thing that does seem apparent is the over supply of information on the internet about RSS; in other words, the number of websites trying to push RSS is way out of kilter with the number of searches. Those 43,947 searches, according to Keyword Analyser, will bring up a staggering 275,000,000 results; that is a Results/Search ratio of 6258. That is very high, and indicates a tough market to penetrate and make money out of, at least on that search term. Do you think there are a lot of people looking for RSS tutorials? Well, in April 2005 there were just 272 on Overture. Results brought up by the search? 108,000,000! That's a R/S ratio of 397,059. Big supply, and little demand. If that were the gold market, the price of gold would be falling through the floor.

I admit that none of those figures mean a great deal, and nothing about the prospects of RSS becoming mainstream. Whether we reach the stage where many millions of consumers use RSS feeds as a matter of course will depend very much on the likes of Google, Yahoo, and MSN. All three are working away, beta testing various aspects of RSS. My Yahoo has been beta testing subscription to RSS feeds for some time now, and if I start a new feed, My Yahoo is my first port of call to subscribe to my own feed. That way, Yahoo know about it and the Yahoo search engine robot will dutifully go and check it out.

In due course, it will be up to the likes of Yahoo to convince their users that there are good reasons to subscribe to RSS feeds. To achieve that, the user interface for RSS will need to be seamless from their normal daily online activity. Things are gradually moving in that direction, but it remains to be seen whether RSS will ever become part of the every day online life of the average consumer.

Much of the interest surrounding RSS has been as a Spam Avoidance System. However, last week I was doing some research on RSS feeds through My Yahoo, and it was evident already that in some topics spam is beginning to rule the roost as far as the search results go. Let us hope that Yahoo and the other key players find ways to filter out the spammers, so that if RSS feeds do become mainstream, all is clean, welcoming and useful for the average user.

Roy Thomsitt is the owner, webmaster and author of http://www.change-direction.com and http://www.routes-to-self-improvement.com

---

If an RSS feed is the Yahoo Backdoor, is a Blog Googles?

Though the answer is in a book I wrote this... Read More

An Appeal To The Bloggers!

Blogging is smart an art. Blog sites are the nicest... Read More

Small / Medium Business Blog Process Outsourcing as a Website Traffic Building Service

You are a small or a medium business owner. You... Read More

The Hybrid Blog and Ping

For the past two years, one of the best SEO... Read More

How To Display RSS Feeds on Your Website

This article is intended as a guide for webmasters who... Read More

Avoid Bad Manners While Blogging

Blogging, the hottest trend in online publishing right now, is... Read More

3 Overlooked Ways to Get Hundreds of Links and Prospects to Your Blog

Did you know that there are free ways that you... Read More

Why Every Site Needs RSS

RSS or 'Really Simple Syndication' is not just for Blogs... Read More

How To Create A Blog

Blogs are more permanent than posts to an online discussion... Read More

RSS & How to Use It -- Part 2

Welcome to part 2 of the article that aims to... Read More

Blog Problems

What in the world is up with the world of... Read More

Blood Test for Your Blog?

Are you contributing to one of the estimated 36.1 million... Read More

The Language of Blogs

I read over a lot of blogs each week, casually... Read More

Introduction to Really Simple Syndication (RSS)

Really Simple Syndication is exactly what it's name states. A... Read More

Update Your Websites Content Automatically 24/7 Using RSS(Real Simple Syndication) and RSS Feeds

RSS(Real Simple Syndication) is the newest form of content syndication... Read More

3 Tips to improve your RSS marketing

3 Tips to improve your RSS marketing You have... Read More

Why are you abusing RSS

When you are involved in RSS everyday you get to... Read More

Making Money With Your Blog

I've sure you've heard before that it's a possibility to... Read More

How Bloggers Are Making Thousands of Dollars From the Google Adsense Affiliate Program

There is no doubt that the Google Adsense program for... Read More

How Blogs Can Be An Excellent Promotional Tool

Blogs as an online promotional strategy if done right could... Read More

Is Your Site Ready For The Coming RSS Revolution?

Recently, there have been many developments in the RSS arena.... Read More

Its Not Enough to Blog

A properly created weblog will do the following for your... Read More

RSS Feeds Have Revolutionized the Internet

RSS feeds have revolutionized the Internet for one very good... Read More

Using RSS for Publishing and Syndication

There are two reasons why you would want to use... Read More

Do You Know The 3 Key Ways to Blog to Promote Your Online Home Based Business?

Most People who Blog and Ping only use 1 Method... Read More

What the Heck is a Blog?

Everybody is talking about blogs. They are everywhere: on the... Read More

Article Syndication - A New Vehicle for King Content

Creating ContentNew websites are being launched daily. In order to... Read More

The Power of the BLOG

Can a Blog earn you a prison sentence? Ask Mojtaba... Read More

RSS, Feeds, and Aggregators

When you work online all the time, immersed in bits... Read More

Strategic RSS Positioning: How to Hotwire Your Site to Google!

There's no denying it, the Internet has changed. The change... Read More

24 Tips and Strategies on How Everyone Can Blog Right and Get Everybody to Read

By the end of 2004 blogs had established themselves as... Read More

Sales Marketing: Secrets To Using Blogs (Online Diaries) To Increase Your sales And Profits

These days, everybody is blogging.How about you?You can incorporate blogging... Read More

Blogging for Dollars

Blogging for dollars might sound like the latest game show... Read More