No RSS Feed? It's A Genetic Marker For "Lame Site"

Post by **Tami** » Wed May 18, 2005 12:32 am

[b]opinions?[/b]

No RSS Feed? It\'s A Genetic Marker For \"Lame Site\"

By Robert Scoble

OK, a few people have already written in and said that that Xbox site is lame not because it doesn\'t have an RSS feed but because it doesn\'t have any content.

Bing, bing, bing! You win $10 million. You\'re right!

\"So, Scoble, if we\'re right, why are you being such a shmuck about RSS?\"

Because not having an RSS feed is a genetic marker for a lame site.

Hear me out.

Look at the Xbox site again. It has no content, right? Well, add an orange XML icon to the site. What changes? A few things:

1) Now the site promises FUTURE content. Bing! Bing! Bing! New stuff gonna come. This site won\'t stay static. Static sites are lame. Don\'t believe me? Well, do some Google or MSN or Yahoo searches. Which sites invariably are at the top of the list? Sites that change often. Why is that? Why do sites like Engadget and Gizmodo have more traffic than most corporate home pages? Content changes often is the #1 thing.

2) If you don\'t have an RSS feed, your site is lame because you\'ve told the connectors (er, superusers, er influentials) that they don\'t matter. When I see a site that doesn\'t have an RSS feed I see a site that says \"Mr. Scoble you aren\'t welcome here and we don\'t ever want you to come back again.\"

3) Sites, like the Xbox one, that try to get customers to sign up and give an email address to get new content are telling customers \"hey, we wanna spam you and we want our spam to be mixed in with all those Viagra spams you get. In fact, if you really are an advanced user we want our content to be shoved into your \"junk\" folder. Yes, our content is junk.\" Do you really want to be saying that? An RSS subscription, on the other hand, goes where +I+ want it to go. Hint: that\'s not into the junk folder.

So, marketers, if you are being compensated for building lame sites, keep on building sites without RSS feeds. My readers might see them as lame for other reasons, but not having an RSS feed is a genetic marker for \"lame site.\"

Oh, and don\'t think that very well funded and very advanced sites can\'t be lame. Steve Wynn\'s is an [url=\"http://www.wynnlasvegas.com/\"][u]example[/u][/url]. He built a multi-billion-dollar casino in Las Vegas that opened recently. This morning I wanted to find a place to have breakfast. I was lost on his site. It took 60 seconds just to start it up (it\'s all in Flash). And, once in, I couldn\'t find a restaurant that would serve breakfast. Even if I could, I wouldn\'t have been able to link you into the restaurant directly. Lame, lame, lame. Again, what\'s the genetic marker? No RSS feed.

source: devwebpro newsletter

Sp3culuM · Post by **Sp3culuM** » Wed May 18, 2005 12:49 am

Bad read. No real argument in that article at all. The person that wrote it should be shot.

Now, if he'd said that there's a growing demand for RSS he'd have been onto something. But to say no RSS renders a website 'lame', is.. well.. lame.

Post by **Tami** » Wed May 18, 2005 1:04 am

I have to agree with you on that point - this is definitely not one of Scoble\'s better articles and in a way it\'s disappointing. However...he does have a point about RSS feeds - I don\'t personally subscribe to any, I just read a tonnage of newsletters every day, but I sense that the web trend is moving towards RSS feeds judging from how many sites I go to on a regular basis are offering them. I admit I have not done much reading on how they work/how much bw they utilize, but is this something that we should be looking at at least for gaming & kn\'s main site?

Post by **Scott** » Wed May 18, 2005 9:48 am

Mambo already has RSS feeds, along with atom. KB also has them and ipb 2.1 will include them for the forum. <img src=\'http://www.killanet.net/forum3/public/s ... /smile.gif\' class=\'bbc_emoticon\' alt=\':)\' />

Trinity · Post by **Trinity** » Wed May 18, 2005 10:32 am

I'm like you ada, and I usually visit my daily sites and check for updates (forums, mezzoblue, simplebits etc.) - I haven't really looked at RSS feeds yet.

An RSS feed for the forum's a great idea.

Post by **Tami** » Wed May 18, 2005 3:07 pm

I know mambo has the rss feed thing - but would we be looking at a huge jump in bw usage if we were to start using rss feeds in the future?

Post by **Scott** » Wed May 18, 2005 8:01 pm

Unlikely, rss feeds are pure text...nothing draining