RS Huh?

As I noted earlier, most communicators still don’t know what RSS is and it still takes a while for the idea to seep in. (Once they get it, you can almost smell the rubber burning.) I know this from recent practical experience. I’m on my lunch break on the second day of my third “Writing for the Wired World” workshop in nine days. I introduce RSS in each one, and for those who don’t already understand RSS, it’s a challenge to wrap their minds around it.

Fortunately, in a classroom setting, I can take as much time as I need to help the concept gel. What about all those people who visit your page and see the orange box or the “Syndicate” link and have no clue what it means? Sure, there are plenty of RSS tutorials and explanations out there, but these people won’t know what it is to begin with, no less how to go about finding an online guide.

To address this issue, Alexandra Samuel, who created the RSStocracy guide referenced in the link above, has come up with another nifty idea. Here it is:

This is actually one of several such icons available for your page. One says, for example, RSS: WTF? They all point to the same guide that Samuels has created. She also has some links to additional resources, all bound under one landing page.

It’s a good idea, but there’s no great need to link only to Samuels’ site. You could create an icon to link to any tutorial you like, even one you create yourself. But if we’re going to help people get up to speed, providing a clue to the clueless is a nice touch. Kudos to Samuels for coming up with the idea.

1. Hello Shel,

   Continuing on the “What is RSS” theme, something that might make a good topic for a future For Immediate Release podcast would be a brief overview of Atom.  The IETF working group creating Atom has just submitted it’s final draft for review by the IESG which means that—barring any unforseen major issues—the specification is almost done and ready for implementation and deployment.  An objective overview of what the new standard has to offer relative to the existing RSS specifications would likely be very valuable to the members of your audience who are exploring syndication.

   As a participant in the IETF working group, I could help point you in the right direction for details and would even be willing to sit down with you to chat about the new standard and what it means for syndicators.  Let me know!

   Posted by James Snell  on  06/21  at  09:01 AM

2. Shel,

   I was a student in your Texas class, and it’s just one of those things you have to sit down and “jump right in” to fully grasp. Yesterday, I downloaded Pluck, and have set up several feeds, including one to your blog. I even started my own blog (everyone else has one…why not me?!) It took all of ten minutes.

   Your class was great!

   Thanks!
   Chris

   Posted by Chris Sasser  on  06/21  at  12:06 PM

3. I think using icons like these is brilliant. They stand out, are easy to understand and lead those in need of further information to good sources thereby reducing our need to constantly re-address this type of core issue with the uninitiated.
   I wish that this concept would be adopted not only with regard to the technologies surrounding blogs but to the content of blogs as well. For example, I often start reading a blog where the author assumes that the readers are already up to speed on the subject matter being covered when in fact their blog might be the first site being viewed in an attempt to come up to speed. Creating and using an icon to direct the reader to backgrounder information is another way to share knowledge with newcomers to the community with minimal effort. I don’t see the icons as a substitute for standard hyper linking but as a judiciously used supplement.
   Jim Snell also raises an interesting idea in his post. I don’t really understand the whole RSS/Atom thing but if someone wrote up something similar to what Alexandra Samuel did about RSS and icons started showing up on the blogs I read, I would gladly follow one and dig deeper into the issue. Without the icon, it just continues to be one of those things that are on my “look into after you look into everything else” list.
   I hope that he follows up on his idea.

   Posted by Robert Banghart  on  06/22  at  07:32 AM