DISQUS

Stuart MacDonald · 3 years ago

Wow, I am chiming in a lot. Sorry, Mathew -- you are just putting up some interesting topics and my semi-retirement-addled brain likes the chance to talk about them...and then there's the egg nog ;-). Anyhoo...

If the question is "will Readers disappear?" then the answer is "of course they will." Why? Because this functionality is best described as a feature, and a feature's natural home is as a part of another thing (and, of course, the dotcom bust was riddled with the remnants of "features" masquerading as companies. I rest my case). From the user's perspective, RSS is just another way to get information -- what, where and when they choose. In that context, you can see that the natural home for this functionality is inside places where people can see the output of their feed selections as well as other things of self-selected interest to them. The self-created, uber home page if you will. Yes, this basic concept has been around forEVER, but they haven't really been user created. You sorta had to pick and choose from what the portal had on offer (thanks to content and eComm distribution deals) but, as you are starting to see with GOOG's /ig for instance, RSS and ATOM feeds are becoming more commonplace in this type of environment. Said another way, something like this will have to happen for this type of syndication to become "mass market" so it likely will.

- Stuart

Mathew · 3 years ago

I totally agree, Stuart. That's why I prefer using something like netvibes.com rather than a straight-ahead RSS reader. I remember way back when, everyone used to talk about things like Archie and Gopher and whatnot, and then everything got sucked up by the Web, and it was much better.

As for the chiming in, please keep it up, eggnog or no eggnog :-)

Stuart MacDonald · 3 years ago

Thanks :-)

Netvibes is cool. Now, imagine that sort of functionality in a place with 60 million uniques a month or what-have-you and you can get a sense of what's likely, I'd say. This is why GOOG's /ig has potential to bust this open as it gets better, as do MSN or YHOO if they can wrap their heads around/figure out how to make money off of allowing users to do their own thing. At that point, RSS (or Son Of, whatever that might be) becomes true must-have plumbing, likely with a strong just-in-time, opt-in advertising-esque business model associated with it. And, guess what? Opt-in direct mail email becomes yesterday's news because folks are getting news about stuff they are interested in, in front of them as it happens. Something like that feels likely to me, anyway.

And on the topic of way-back-when, I remember dialling-up to use eAAsy SABRE at 2400 baud or whatever to check flights in 1992, maybe? And being dazzled. :-)

- Stuart

Mathew · 3 years ago

I must admit, as much as I like Netvibes -- and it is currently way better than Google's page or live.com -- it doesn't appear to have anything that isn't easily duplicated, or any way of tying a user to Netvibes as opposed to anywhere else. Maybe they're hoping to get bought by GYM.

Stuart MacDonald · 3 years ago

I hadn't even looked at live (poor form for a former MS badge owner, even a transient one like myself). Taking a peek, it smells a lot like my l'il description, though. Sigh. So much for me having an original idea.

And on the GYM membership (I just thought of that...:-)) -- seems unlikely for Netvibes, I'd have to say, for the reasons you point to.

- Stuart