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RSS feeds, Newsreaders Blogs
IMA Conference, January 28, 2005 Susan Mernit,
digital media consultant 5ive, www.5ivegroup.net
Blog susanmernit.blogspot.com Email
smernit_at_5ivegroup.net
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Why are we talking about?

• RSS feeds/syndication
• RSS aggregators, aka newsreaders
• Blogging citizen journalism

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What is RSS?

• RSS (Really Simple Syndication) allows content
  creatorsboth professionals and amateursto
  create feeds that can be syndicated and
  distributed across the Internet
• Publishers and bloggers (citizen journalists)
  use RSS to make their content available as links
  and digests on Web pages and as headlines in
  newsreaders readers click on the links to read
  the full items on the originating sites
• This technology permits readers to access content
  from many more sites than they could by clicking
  from URL to URL.
• It also means readers dont need to start at news
  sites to get news.

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Why RSS matters

• Online news consumption is being shifted by RSS
  and the value chain of usage is being disrupted
  by adding push to the pull nature of the Web
• Search portals, RSS readers and blogs are
  siphoning visitors and traffic away from news web
  sites.
• Established news sites are being bypassed in
  favor of headline/digest feeds published
  elsewhere
• Currently few online news sites receive revenue
  from distributing RSS or from use of their
  content from bloggers who comment on their
  stories.

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RSS feeds/syndication
WHAT RSS feeds/syndication-XML protocol to
distribute content WHY RSS (Really Simple
Syndication), blogs (citizen journalism), and
third-party aggregation (e.g., MyYahoo) challenge
the packaging and sale of professional reporting
and editing WHO Feedster.com, Technorati.com,
PubSub.com, Blogdigger.com, Topix.net,
feedburner. Kinja.com
tools

Over 160 US newspapers currently offer RSS feeds
of their storiesseehttp//www.themediadrop.com/a
rchives/001588.php
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News enthusiasts are moving to RSS
Sources Pew Internet American Life Project,
Yahoo Inc, Rojo estimates
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The competitive picture

• Reuters is aggressively promoting RSS as a means
  to drive readers back to its home page
• Google News, My Yahoo, and MSN (the
  superpowers) are actively aggregating news
  content, blurring the lines between news
  aggregators and newsgatherers
• Topix, Bloglines, Feedster and many smaller
  players are nibbling at the marginshoping to be
  acquired by a superpower
• The market is emerging quicklytime to market
  will be an issue for audience acquisition and
  switching costs
• News and information sites need a strategy to
  create and launch RSS feeds and decide what they
  want to get from the process.

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RSS Newsreaders
WHAT RSS readersroll your own info WHY RSS
newsreaders allow users to build their own
content aggregators and skim headlines. WHO
MyYahoo, Bloglines, Newsgator, others

Revenue models Ad-splicing into feeds
(Overture/Pheedo, Kanoodle)
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How do consumers use RSS?

• Consumers read RSS feeds on portal sites like My
  Yahoo (which offers 150,000 RSS feeds) as a way
  to create their own news pages and skim headlines
  and digests
• eBay, Craigslist, Tribe.net and other
  transactional communities offer RSS feeds as a
  means of tracking new postings
• Commercial outfits, including Amazon and Netflix,
  offer RSS feeds so users can track new releases
  and deals

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How are blogs related?

• RSS has gotten a huge boost from the growth of
  blogs, or user-created Weblogs, which now
  number in the millions
• Distributing content via RSS helps some bloggers
  reach audiences of over 100,000 readers a day
• Blogs have become a new point of entry for news
  consumers, disrupting the old linear path from
  fact to commentary
• 20 million people are reading blogs, making them
  an important traffic driver and source of content

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Blogging Citizen Journalism
WHAT Blogging Citizen journalism are
disintermediated content, displace traditional
journalism as news opinion source challenge
the packaging and sale of professional reporting
and editing WHY Inexpensive platform lowers
barriers to entry improved search drives
discovery WHO (Blog tools) SixApart.com
(Movetable Type and Typepad, Blogger(Google), MSN
Spaces, WordPress, Blogsmith

Revenues Fee for service, sponsored advertising,
text ads
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Local news blogs take off

• Blogs moving into the local news space as
  grassroots media, aka Citizen Journalism
• ExGothamist (NYC), Barista.net (NJ),
  Coastsider.com(CA), GetLocalNews.com(CA),
  Greensboro101.com(NC)
• Some news sites are integrating blogs, notably
  the Greensboro News Record(blog.news-record.com)
  and Northwest Voice(Bakersfield,CA,
  www.northwestvoice.com )
• Pluses Local voices, interactivity
• Issues Credibility, accuracy

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Questions to consider

• Does your site have RSS feeds?
• Blogs?
• Business strategy for the above?
• These are effective tools for audience
  acquisition and affinityif handled well.
• Time-bombs if not.