This post was prompted by Steve Gillmor’s article ‘Rest in Peace, RSS‘ posted on TechCrunchIT on May 5, 2009. In the article Steve Gillmor argues that RSS service has no place in this world and instead internet users should switch solely to Twitter to get their daily dose of news and information. Although I disagree with Mr. Gillmor, he is not completely wrong; he does note that Twitter serves as a better system of disseminating new content earlier. However, there are two issues that Steve Gillmor doesn’t consider in his argument. First is the questionable process of content delivery via Twitter. And second is that this process is human powered.
Twitter is great for disseminating early content before it is even published on blogs, newspapers, heard on the radio or shown on TV. However, to get the whole sense of what is going on, the users need to follow breadcrumbs in the discussion between Tweeple. A great example would be reporting an earthquake or a fire. Although the mainstream media won’t be able to report it as quickly, twitter users (aka Tweeple) are able to spread the message of first-hand accounts across their Twitter network. The problem with distributing this type of content via Twitter is that it is human powered.
In order to spread the content, Tweeple need to be active on Twitter. If no one is logged in, no content gets spread. If users don’t have followers, or enough of them, again, the content doesn’t get spread. To really take advantage of early warning content delivery from Twitter, users (or influential ones at least) need to be hooked up 24/7 to get the content out to the masses. Although possible, but somewhat unrealistic for someone to sit and monitor thousands of discussions on Tweedeck live and wait for new content to arrive. People have jobs to go to and lives to attend to. A couple of other issues arise from human powered content delivery. The reliability and credibility. It is at users’ discretion to spread the content, and to spread accurate content. Sometimes people are not fast enough or are able to deliver most accurate information.
RSS is not dead. It is alive and well. I learned about Steve Gillmor’s article via my subscription to TechCrunch RSS feed on my Google Reader, not through Twitter. For the reasons below, RSS will continue to flourish and stay alive:
- Subscribe to any type of content you want to see. Eliminate noise.
- Content arrives as soon as it is published.
- See it all in one spot. No need to visit multiple sites or follow breadcrumbs.
- See it whenever you want.
- Get more than 140 characters of info.
- Faster delivery for published content.
Both Twitter and RSS feeds are killer tools. The best practice is to use them in harmony to maximize the speed, credibility and reliability of content delivery.
