RSS is not dead, it just REALLY sucks compared to Twitter

screenshot of why google reader sucks

The comments in Fred Wilson’s post about RSS say it all:

The RSS user experience is so terrible that it should be relegated to invisible plumbing like any other web standard.

I get so much more joy from reading my Twitter friends or looking at my Tumblr stream than from using a feed reader.

This is because:

  • My Twitter friends surface the awesome and filter the noise. Google Reader just dumps all 999 new BoingBoing posts in my Reader “inbox”. Twitter even makes sites I dislike, like TechCrunch, useful because I only see the posts that are worth a damn.
  • RSS Readers strip links of their “social capital”, “link economics”, or whatever you want to call it. Meanwhile Twitter amplifies the social capital of passing links around. My friends’ tweets add a bit of context, analysis, and most important, fun conversation.
  • RSS’ usability FAIL: with Twitter or Tumblr I can follow or unfollow with one click, and that one click is always in the same place. Subscribing to RSS with Google Reader (and other readers) requires many clicks and redirects, and that’s after I figure out how to set up Google Reader as a “default feed reader” in my browser. Then I have to categorize the feed, etc.
  • Pruning feeds is crucial, but RSS readers make it hard to do so. In any case, nobody likes spending time “managing” their RSS feeds.
  • RSS is “one to many” and “broadcasty”. It doesn’t encourage participation, feedback, and sharing like Twitter and Tumblr. Following a person on Twitter feels like following a person, not some newsbot.
  • When I click the RSS button in my browser URL bar, I usually have to decide between RSS, RSS 2.0, Atom, Comments RSS, and who knows what else. Don’t make me think!
  • Even the name “RSS” is user hostile. “Follow” is so much better.
  • Most RSS readers look like email clients, and really, who wants to spend time in Outlook?

The shortcomings of RSS are so bad that these days I tell new bloggers to use Tumblr instead of WordPress or TypePad. The ease of Tumblr’s “follow” button outweighs all the fancy widgets and plugins that mainstream blog software offers. (The UI bloat and difficulty of WordPress and TypePad are a problem too, but more on that later.)

Notes:

  • I’m aware of products that try to filter and massage RSS to make it useful, but those products just treat the symptoms.
  • This comment (and subsequent replies) on Fred’s blog nails it.

September 4, 2009 / Category: User Experience Reviews / Tags: , , ,

  • Hi ya! I love Twitter too. However, there are some things I'm only able to get via RSS. I just discovered Feedly a couple of days ago (via Twitter of course). It displays your feeds that you do want to read in a very useable page. It's made reading feeds fresh and new again. You should try it out and see how you like it.
  • What rubbish... they're completely different... does RSS still need that killer app? Yes, probably. But Twitter is not "easy" -- it's moronic... the only "real" content (i.e. that competes with RSS) is just offered as links to sites that you might as well just get the feed for and read directly in your feed reader.
  • 1) The RSS subscribing workflow needs to feel exactly like Tumblr: toggle on and off, one click.

    2) RSS by itself is too noisy. It needs to be filtered somehow for "interestingness" and relevance.
  • Robert
    I think that they attempt to solve two radically different problems.

    Twitter is useful for many-to-many "quick conversations". The 140-character limit per tweet requires that each message be clear and concise (or, at least, strongly encourages it).

    RSS, is useful for one-to-many push-notification. The absence of a limit on the length of a post means that the actual, whole message can be sent, rather than just a link.

    The real problem, I think, is that people use one when the other would be more appropriate; especially using RSS when twitter would be the better option. For example, webcomics with an RSS feed of nothing more than "the new comic is up" would be better served by tweeting that said new comic is up, along with a url. RSS lets me read many webcomics without having to visit each comic's site. Think about that: instead of dealing with a list of links, each of which needs to be opened individually, I can just hit "j" to go to the next item of interest (yes, using Google Reader). If I had access only to tweets, I'd need to use a mouse.

    Yes, there is room to improve with respect to how RSS feeds are typically published (Google, I'm looking at you: I have never opted to add a feed to iGoogle -- I never even use iGoogle -- stop asking me!). But, don't throw the baby out with the bathwater.

    Why do we need freight trains, when we have motorcycles? Because they both have radically different capabilities. Both should be used, but not for the wrong purposes.
  • Valid points, but RSS is just so painful to use. So much friction.
  • Robert
    Is it that RSS is painful to use, or is it that the RSS reader you have isn't where you'd like it to be?

    Is the highway poorly built, or does the truck have bad shocks and too many gears (I know some have 10-20 gears; I don't know what the standard is, but 18 stands out for some reason; probably the number of wheels).
  • It doesn't matter to users whether RSS or the RSS reader is to blame. It needs to be one click toggle simple, as seamless as Tumblr following.
  • Perhaps its just me, but I get waay more noise in Twitter than my RSS feeds. I follow only 91 people since I don't follow people who don't have anything interesting to say, but I have 130 RSS feeds.
    And what does "pruning" feeds mean? Are you categorizing, tagging, removing, or something different? I don't remove feeds very often.
    I also reads my feeds to get the news I want, not the off-topic items I get with most personal Twitter accounts. And the business related ones usually have more to say than what fits in 140 chars, so they post links to their blog, so why not just follow the blog?
    I would, however, agree with you on the usability aspects you mentioned. But I do feel that you have to pick and choose where your data that you read comes from. Some information is better served Twitter style while other data is much better RSS style.
  • By pruning I mean deleting feeds that I'm not interested in anymore or that have a bad signal to noise ratio.

    I do get a lot of noise in my Twitterstream, but it's "good" noise. Brief fun stuff from people I like. RSS noise is long, impersonal, and mostly not worth my time.
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