RSS: Really Simple Stupid

a>You are not stupid. You are smart. I am stupid.

I say this because for a long time I was using Really Simple Syndication (RSS) and I didn’t know it. I have a Google gmail account because I grew tired of my Hotmail address at about the same time they started asking for money for more storage. Also, I thought that “@hotmail” was kind of amateurish, along with my “@yahoo” address. I am neither a Bill Gates fan nor a Yahoo, and I wanted to be elitist, eat arugula, and show my love of Google.

Gmail got me to start using iGoogle, a service for those with gmail accounts to have a customizable landing page. My iGoogle site gives me what regular Google.com gives me, but it also enables me to display widgets (the weather, a world clock, my horoscope) and news items of my choosing (Slate, The Onion, Politico, New York Times, Newsweek). Grabbing the top stories from the publications that I read is very easy with iGoogle, and because my iGoogle page is my homepage in my browser, I am up to speed on all major global news that I care about.

Then, after years of envying my friends and colleagues, I bought an iPod. Not a touch -- I’m not that tricked out yet. And I started using iTunes to download podcasts for free (National Public Radio’s “This American Life” is one of my favorites). The iTunes interface easily helped me find free podcasts and subscribe to them so I can listen to podcasts and view videos whenever I like.

OK, so as I was using iGoogle and iTunes, I didn’t realize that subscribing to news, podcasts and videos was only possible because of RSS. (Like I said, I was stupid.) But I want you all to know that I am getting smarter. I’ve even started to use RSS to get news updates in my Outlook email folders.

If you practice PR and you haven’t gotten into RSS yet then now is the time. If you’re relying on Google alerts to get news about your clients and their competitors, that’s great. But what if you want to read the latest articles as they come online from your target publications? In that case, you can either set up an iGoogle account, or you can do what I have done with Outlook.

First, do some web searches and find the publications, sections of publications, blogs, or whatever you want to read on a regular basis. Then, in Internet Explorer click on this symbol:



When you click on that symbol (sometimes called the RSS Chicklet) you will see an address pop up for a new URL in your web browser window. Copy that URL (control C).

Now, start your Outlook email program and do the following:

1. On the Tools menu, click Account Settings.
2. On the RSS Feeds tab, click New.
3. In the New RSS Feed dialog box, type or press CTRL+V to paste the URL of the RSS Feed. For example, http://www.example.com/feed/main.xml.
4. Click Add.
5. Click OK.
   
Now, you will begin to see in your Outlook Mail Folders articles popping up under the RSS Chicklet folder. Those new RSS feeds you’ve subscribed to will be filled up with news that you care about the minute the news is posted to the Internet.

If you care about getting news from the outlets, reporters or bloggers you track, then you have to try setting up RSS feeds in Outlook.

Now, you probably feel a whole lot smarter…I would love to hear how it’s working for you.

A New BeginNING

The very first post I made to this blog was about my old friend Tom Anderson, co-founder of MySpace. We were in a band together in college and I really admire all that he’s been able to accomplish with his social network. He’s taking it into new territory and putting music at the forefront, which is his true passion as a veritable walking encyclopedia of arcane musical trivia (Ringo – throw me a banana!). Don’t ask.

 

So that’s why I’m concerned about MySpace and Facebook. Are they losing their cache? In a recent PC World article on the “10 Most Overrated Products” Facebook loses to Multiply.com and reporter Darren Gladstone quips that Facebook has “free applications of dubious value, plus scores of plug-ins and games that draw you deeper into the Facebook rabbit hole until you're spending hours a day befriending complete strangers with whom you have nothing in common beyond a shared love of Raisin Bran.”

 

And Mediaweek recently rated the Digital Hot List 2008, and MySpace wasn’t even listed. What’s going on? Is social media tanking? I don’t think so. What I think is happening is that more people are trying sites like Ning.com to build their own social media sites where they can grow their own communities on the Internet.

 

Haven’t heard of Ning? I read a brilliant article on Ning in Fast Company earlier this year and I began using the site. Basically, it enables anyone with minimal knowledge of website design to create an online social network. That network can be open to everyone or closed and open to members by invitation only. The level of customization is awesome. Post videos and still images, blog, chat in real time, or create forums – most of what you can do with Facebook or MySpace is available, but you are essentially creating your own Facebook or MySpace with Ning serving as the backbone.

 

Marketers who have tried and failed to leverage social networking sites should pay attention to Ning because it provides the tools (at free or very low cost) to create a community with shared interests online. And it’s very cool. If Tom can create an empire like MySpace, you can create YourSpace with Ning. Let me know if you've played around with Ning and how it's working for you.

If a blog post falls in the woods, will anyone hear it?

There are too many blogs.

 

I say this with neither good nor bad overtones. If you are interested in macramé, LOST, Borat, Chinese gymnasts, or any one of the presidential candidates, there is a blog for you. Certainly this citizen journalism poses a threat to mainstream media, and that’s why CNN is now Twittering and featuring iReports from Joey and Jane Sixpack.

 

And it stands to reason why there is a proliferation of blogs – we Americans are obsessed with ourselves. How else can we explain the impulse to put our most private thoughts, videos, up on the Internet for millions to see?  Twitter enables the truly self-obsessed to post about their lives – tweet – minute by minute.

 

Never mind if these tweets are actually factual. You can have a lot of fun at your friends’ expense by making up tweets: “Michael is now doing macramé with Borat, some Chinese acrobats and Sarah Palin in Honolulu.” 09:30 AM October 1, 2008 from web

 

That’s the fun of blogs. It’s mostly opinion and rarely fact (It’s what we want). What would happen if someone was writing fiction about you? Or writing fiction about your brand? Or, if not fiction, then something mean. Finding those tweets, videos, flickr images, and blog posts online, and sifting through them to find the really juicy ones, would be very time consuming.

 

I’ve recently started using Radian6, which provides me with an omniscient view on all of the chatter in the online world with a cool interface. I like Panera’s sandwiches and Chipotle’s burritos, so I decided to evaluate the level of online chatter about these brands. Panera had more than twice as many posts as Chipotle in the past 30 days, and I was able to see when there were spikes in posting activity that mentioned these brands (see the graphic below). I was able to drill down and read the posts that connect Panera with things that are part of the company’s DNA, like freshness. I was able to see what people who visit these chains actually think about the company.

 

While reading all of this content, I felt like I was listening to trees falling in the woods. These desperate souls, all intent on sharing their every thought with friends and random strangers, were being seen by me. If I felt like it, I could have made comments on their posts and tell them that I too like the Frontega Chicken hot panini. Like some sort of deity, I could answer their prayers to be heard, or I could just listen in and move on. If I worked for Panera, I could have given those who wrote favorable reviews a coupon to buy more sandwiches. Now, that would certainly be playing God.

 

I’d like to know if you think that there’s a value in hearing what the great unwashed masses think, or if the taste-makers in the mainstream media are the only ones that matter. And, given that a blog post’s value is mostly measurable by how frequently people comment on any given post, should we care about a blog post on which no one comments? And, if a tree falls in the woods, does it make a sound?