Quite. This is exactly what I want to talk about that the Changing Media thing next week: the huge gulf between the behaviour of the slightly-over-tech-literate crowd, and the rest of the world. There are so many solutions being made for problems that only really exist for very few people, if at all: information overload, for example.

The problem is that, as developers, we’re always being told that missing out, say, the latest webX.0 technology, is a sign that we’re behind the times to a fatal degree. Doomed in the eyes of the technorati, when in reality most users couldn’t care less.

There seems to be an assumption here that all eyeballs are created equal. Neil, I might annoy you by bringing this little debate up again, but as has been pointed out about the full feed vs excerpt debate, the answer lies in who you’re trying to reach and influence. If you don’t care whether or not influencers read your stuff, go ahead and just offer excerpts. If you want to be read and linked, drop the vanity and offer full feeds. If ‘the masses’ aren’t influencers or spenders, I wouldn’t worry too much about whether or not they’re using RSS yet. There’s still a lot of room for improvement in RSS aggregation software, and if this serves as an incentive, that’s great. In the meantime, it’s hard to care about low adoption amongst people who don’t matter as much (in this one sense) right now anyway.

I agree with yourself and Ben. I think RSS, as it is, is only of use to a small niche audience. It will only be used by the masses when they don’t know they’re using it, when it evolves into the machinery that powers all news. If indeed it ever does.

Neil, I mentioned to you how (ironically) by using RSS, blogs and websites as my sole news sources I know more about less and less about more. In the old days, if I bought a newspaper I would read it cover to cover. I don’t read Guardian Unlimited cover to cover. Not even a 100th of the daily output. I’m sure I miss some fabulous stuff simply because I now rely upon blogs and links and del.icio.us to tell me what to read.

I realise now that RSS, and what is really a reliance upon others who filter the net for me, has made me a very passive reader. It’s the whole goldfish bowl effect. The notion of RSS giving you only the news you want when you want it is making those of us who over rely upon it a lot less informed about a lot more stuff.

It’s called “RSS”, for a start. I think laypeople *get* the concept of adding a news source to your Google Personalized Homepage, same goes for that paper (who was it? USAToday.com? Miami Herald?) allowing readers to subscribe to rival sources in an on-site aggregator. But RSS? Clicking a link and seeing gobbledygook? With the notable exception of FeedBurner (BBC News feeds also include a similar friendly version), the RSS community has singularly failed to popularise their technology. Part of the problem is that community’s command of simple English language/UI (they’re the same nowadays, right? - http://www.37signals.com/svn/a.....ftware.php) - a novice goes to a web page, sees a link that says “XML/RSS”? Come on! Another part of the problem is email dependency culture. But even email addicts need hand-holding on some of the simpler aspects of advanced news consumption us early adopters are running away with. It’s even a leap of faith for many people to *believe* they can save the daily visit to Google News by getting news alerts for pre-defined search terms - either by email or RSS. We’re increasingly told there’s the next big cultural schism is that between young and old. But I think we can see another emerging in those who have the ability to slice, dice and customise their information to an extent where they are super-informed, ultra-savvy - and those who… aren’t.

RSS has always seemed like a silly waste of time to me, a case of tech for the sense of tech. Look at it this way:

1) Open up web-browser, go to bookmarks, go look at sites
2) Open up extra page and then click on the links before go looking at sites that are targetted to me

I don’t see what the benefit of 2) is. It’s more or less the same number of clicks but I see less actual information. I see stuff tailored to me, yes, but if I only stick with what I know, how the hell do I actually grow and learn new things.

Good point, Charles, but again I’d offer that most people - generally - aren’t wanting as much news as you or me. On mobile, especially, news has failed to prove much of a draw - that’s why 3 now put news quite far down their home page, where once it led it. I’m looking forward to RSS on my phone, and it may drive data use among techies like us who perhaps don’t use their phones for much of it now, but I’m willing to accept it’s still a minority sport. The question is, can RSS support something that’s going to be of interest to a breakthrough number of people?