Do you RSS?

Coming into the new year of 2008, I still am amazed at the number of people who do not know about RSS or indeed know what it is, yet have failed to utilise it.

I wish my organisation was more proactive in using RSS, but it still does not seem to be on the radar screen of the IT department, despite the fact that Enterprise licenses for RSS are cheap!

Could the uptake and adoption of Web 2.0 be greater if people used RSS and were exposed to the benefits it provides? My view is a resounding YES.

Looking back to when I first took my first baby steps in using RSS, a whole new world opened up to me - the conversations I could now participate in amazed me, and indeed encouraged me to start blogging. Today, I do not know how I could survive without access to RSS feeds - it simplifies and amplifies my world at the same time. Conversations have allowed me to connect - RSS extends my reach and also provides a tapestry of rich rewards.

I wonder how much more connected people could be if they took a small step into Web 2.0 through RSS...

Comments

[Stephen Bounds]

Hi Chris,

The problem is that IT people don't see RSS as solving any *business* problems -- particularly inside the firewall.

I don't agree with this assessment. I think the opt-in subscription mechanism of RSS has the best chance of breaking the stranglehold of email on internal business collaboration since, well, the web began.

However, there aren't any decent corporate tools out there yet. Give me a tool that delivers Twitter and Feedblitz inside the firewall, and then we have a shot.

(As an aside: what do you mean that "Enterprise licenses for RSS are cheap"? Since it's a technology rather than an actual product ...)

[Chris Fletcher]

Hi Stephen,

What I meant by Enterprise Licence is that to deploy a specific RSS Reader across the organisation - whilst there are a lot of free RSS readers, my experience with IT is that they want a licence agreement where they have a recourse for vendor support - the licences I have seen have been very small dollars.

I agree that the business needs to champion the adoption of RSS into the organisation and get IT to deploy it. The challenge is one of chicken and egg - to get decision makers to understand what RSS is and the benefit it will provide staff. One of the angles I have been using is that people (read predominantly younger staff) are already using their own RSS readers - would it not be better to embrace this inside the firewall and support and nuture this as a first step into the world of Web 2.0

[Stephen Bounds]

The problem is that no-one wants to learn a new tool. (Except for those who do, of course. But they aren't the problem.)

Therefore, RSS realistically needs to integrate into either email or the company intranet. And you need to value-add to an existing business process.

Here's a simple scenario: Say your company has a number of business units that send out weekly updates via email. Everyone is complaining that their inbox is full of these things.

The RSS way: Convince the business units to publish to a blog instead, then set up an RSS directory on a web page and tell people they can subscribe or unsubscribe to any of the newsletters listed on that page through a one-click process.

Benefits:
(1) Permanent, public archive of newsletters for future reference
(2) Self-service opt-in/opt-out for staff
(3) Ability to respond and comment on newsletters through a central web page

Well, it's almost a business case ... and once that system's online, you can start hinting about the benefits of RSS subscription to other public web sites as a "zero-effort" additional benefit.