In my Aug. 21 post, It’s not about your site anymore, I talked about how web sites are becoming less important for online content distribution as RSS feeds (with their many uses) are enjoying increasingly mainstream usage.

Basically, the trend is that more people are more interested in getting the content they want delivered to them wherever they prefer to be, rather than having to make a special “trip” online to someone’s site. And they’re using lots of popular tools to do just that.

Reader Steve Sergeant (of The Wildebeat, a great podcast) responded with a perspective I’ve heard often. He said:

“I agree that this is true for the bleeding-edge, early adopters, among which I count myself. …But in my experience, the average news consumer and person with a non-media job often has no idea what an RSS reader or aggregator is. Sure, an adventuresome few have discovered iTunes for podcasts or some server-side aggregator, like My Yahoo.”

While it may be true that most net users aren’t yet using feeds (or perhaps most of them are, I just haven’t found current statistics on that), earlier research and current trends indicate that feeds may have already grown far more popular than conventional wisdom might lead us to assume.

Furthermore, I think general ignorance of the key role that feeds play in supporting many of today’s most popular online-media services and experiences may be causing significant harm — especially to journalism, and thus to democracy and other forms of self-determination.

Sounds extreme, I know. Hear me out…

Back in 2005, just a couple of years after RSS feeds hit the online media scene, Neilsen Media Research published this study indicating that “11 % of weblog readers, blog site visitors who claim to read blogs regularly or occasionally, use RSS to sort through the increasing number of blogs available.”

OK, blogs were getting pretty popular in 2005, so 11% of blog readers in that year is not an insignificant number. Now, keep in mind, Nielsen’s survey probably drastically underestimated feed use because it was so poorly worded. Here’s what they asked:

Notice that they only asked about feeds from blogs — yet even in 2005 all sorts of sites (especially news and sports sites) had begun publishing feeds. So everyone who, say, subscribed to feeds from washingtonpost.com would have been missed by this survey.

Another 2005 RSS usage statistic came from the Pew Internet & American Life Project: “6 million Americans get news and information fed to them through RSS aggregators” — about 2% of the total US population at the time, and about 3% of the 2005 estimated population of US net users.

Such small percentages do indeed represent “bleeding edge” early adopter usage, I think. Still they’re pretty respectable, considering that widespread publication of RSS feeds only really started around 2002 or 2003.

Today’s tools are much less geeky

Feed readers used to be rather geeky and clunky. Also, it wasn’t always easy to figure out which sites had feeds, and how to subscribe to them. These days, lots of people are using feeds and they don’t even know it! Nor should they — feeds have been too geeky for too long.

According to Feedburner’s Feb. 22, 2007 stats, the most common tools (by far) that people use to subscribe to feeds are MyYahoo, Google Reader, and iGoogle personalized home page. None of those tools say “RSS” prominently — they appear to shy away from that geeky acronym which has always been a needless barrier to popular adoption. For feed subscriptions, MyYahoo refers to “add content;” iGoogle says “add stuff;” and Google reader says “add subscription.” Those phrases all really mean “subscribe to a feed.”

Also, popular social networking services like Facebook and MySpace rely on feeds. Ever wonder how you get those updates on your Facebook page about your Facebook friends? You’re actually subscribed to their feeds, which syndicate their content to your Facebook page.

And finally, services like Feedblitz and Rmail syndicate feed content as e-mail alerts. So, for instance, everyone who’s getting e-mail alerts from my blog, Contentious.com, are actually reading my feed! You’re just using your e-mail client as a feed reader. Now, e-mail is not a great tool for managing and reading feeds, but it’s a start.

…So yeah, I think it’s extremely likely that:

• Feed usage has shot up dramatically since 2005.
• A lot of people (maybe even most) who are using feeds don’t know it because the readers and subscription mechanisms are far less geeky and more diverse.
• Feeds have now become pretty damn mainstream for net users, primarily because of the flexible, customized distribution options they support.

Given that, why does the “bleeding edge” reputation of feeds linger? I suspect that’s because feeds support so many popular services but rarely get the credit for it. Normally I’d say that’s fine — generally the geeky details of online tools matter less than how people use them, and to what end.

But in this case, I suspect that widespread ignorance about feeds, and lack of current research on the subject, is causing harm.

Specifically, in my field (journalism) I’m seeing news organizations crumble because they aren’t adapting their business models fast enough to the changing media landscape. Good reporters are getting laid off, and important news is going unreported, in part because news organizations are clinging to ineffective strategies like banner ads and partial-text feeds — which depend on people coming to your site in order for you to make money — rather than finding ways (like feed advertising and improving search visibility through full-text feeds) to make money in a more distributed, customized media environment.

Business basics, folks: You’ve gotta go where your customers and community are.

I dearly treasure journalism and the role it plays in a free society. Without good journalism, it’s hard to get the information we need to make decisions on our own behalf. It’s hard to judge where the collective good really lies. But journalism (at least on the scale and consistency that our large, complex society requires) needs a supporting business structure. That doesn’t mean that huge news organizations must survive or we’re all doomed. But it does mean that (regardless of news org size) the business model supporting journalism must be realistic and viable in the current environment.

That’s why I’m so concerned about ignorance about feeds, and persistent loyalty to boneheaded online-media business strategies, especially among media professionals. That’s why I criticized Freakanomics and the New York Times so strongly recently, in a venue popular with professional journalists. I’m not just getting geeky; I’m talking about the survival of journalism. I’m talking about continued access to information and analysis we need in order to get by well as individuals and as a society.

I’d really, really love to see some more current research on feed adoption rates — especially including under-the-radar options like feed-based services in social networking sites, personalized home pages, and even e-mail syndication.

I’d also like to see better information about feed-based advertising and other business models that make money through content distribution. Seriously, when I recently read this from Freakanomics’ Stephen Dubner:

“The NYT and its advertisers aren’t crazy about [offering full-text feeds]. Why? This is the fundamental point: Many advertisers do not value feed readers as much as they value site readers, since they believe that feed readers are far harder to measure and track.”

…scalding tea shot out through my nose. Such willful ignorance is terribly discouraging to anyone who cares about the survival of journalism. Rather than cling to a business model (banner ads on web pages) that doesn’t really work (and don’t think the advertisers who pay the bills don’t know that), try something different! Experiment! And give your experiment a serious try for enough time to gauge its true effects.

OK, that’s enough for now. I’ll have more to say on this later, no doubt. But in the meantime, what do you think about what I’ve just said? Am I missing something important? Please comment below.

This probably comes as no surprise to anyone, but I’m a major science fiction junkie. I always have been. Forget space operas and epic Arthurian fantasies cloaked in spacesuits — I want the hardcore sci-fi. Where the science or speculative reality angles are integral to the plot and characters, not mere set dressing. Where aliens are REALLY alien, not just English-speaking bipeds with funny foreheads.

For me, sci-fi has been a key way to explore the concepts and possibilities raised by science; to consider what might happen, and why, if some remotely plausible twist of fate came to pass, in this universe or some other. For me, the concepts that form the premise of sci-fi stories, movies, and novels are far more compelling than the special effects.

Because of this, I’m getting frustrated.

Lately I’ve been intrigued by various possibilities of a couple of corners of science: epigenetics and dark matter. In addition to reading about research on the topic, I’d love to be able to easily track down sci-fi stories, novels and videos where those themes were key parts of the plot.

I tried SciFi.com’s wiki SciFiPedia — pretty lame results. Google searches and plowing through forums are chaos.

Here’s what I want: a database or wiki where people tag sci-fi works with keywords for the types of science involved. I’d like to be able to quickly find, say, a list of 10 sci-fi works that address epigenetics.

Have you seen something like that? Please comment below.

Internet Archive At one time, Zipingo apparently offered a fair amount of content. (Click image to enlarge) Now it’s gone.

This morning, I learned via the Ajax blog that yet another site that relied on content contributed by its user community has shut down. On Aug. 23, Zipingo, a small business review site launched in 2002 by Intuit, shuttered its site. All that remains is this announcement — none of the other site content remains accessible.

But looking on the Internet Archive Wayback Machine, I saw that, at least as of Mar. 1, 2007, Zipingo offered a fair amount of content: 122,324 total ratings (I’m not sure if “ratings” were actual reviews or something else on this site), 734 of which came in during the prior week. Unfortunately, you can’t look up actual ratings/reviews via the Internet Archive.

So all that content that people took the time to create and contribute has simply vanished, apparently. Seems awfully disrespectful to Zipingo’s user community, such as it was. This is yet another reason why sites like Furl, which allow you to save your own searchable archive of web pages, can be crucial — things get moved, changed, or deleted all the time online, without notice. Even your own stuff. That can suck.

Seems to me that any site that relies on contributed content should have a content exit strategy, whereby if the site tanks people can still access their content. Or at least, contributors will be notified before the site vanishes so they have an opportunity to save a copy of their contributions if they so desire. Just taking people’s content and trashing it is likely to discourage anyone from contributing to a community site.

Also, this experience seems like one more reason why a good “Me Collector” tool or service is needed.

In response to my post yesterday, I want one place for all my content, knowledge management guru and very cool guy Jack Vinson (who I finally got to meet at BlogHer) posted an elaborate list of almost-options that address various aspects of this puzzle.

See: The elusive me collector. Excerpt:

“The basics of the problem are pretty familiar: content I generate is scattered across many websites of varying degrees of openness. Blogs, wikis, forums, social networks, paid publications, mailing lists, photos, videos, podcasts, … But there isn’t a place where all of that stuff comes together. At the high level the needs are: automatic; item-level controls; permanence; tags; re-mixability.

“I don’t think anything I’ve run across, beyond your standard feed aggregator, has the ability to do something with the resulting aggregated content. Amy suggested that she would like to be able to categorize / tag the content, selectively share it, re-mix it, analyze it, feed it out to something else…. Essentially, ‘it’s my stuff, let me play with it.’”

Yeah. What he said.

Oh, yes, of course I checked — and I now own the domain mecollector.net. I’ll give it away to anyone who can prove they can put together a tool that does what I asked for. Go for it, geeks!

One thing I love about blogging is that other people collectively know so much more than I do.

Yesterday I posted about how badly I want an Apple tablet PC. Promptly, Avram commented: “Have you heard of the Axiotron ModBook? It’s a MacBook hacked into a tablet Mac with a pressure-sensitive drawing surface. Not actually shipping yet (‘fourth quarter of 2007,’ supposedly).”

Well, no. I hadn’t head. I checked it out, and it looked quite cool — possibly offering most of what I want in a mobile content creation device.

Apparently this device caused quite a stir at Macworld this year, and it was supposed to be available by May 2007. That didn’t happen. On July 17, Ars Technica reported that the ship date has been pushed back to the end of this year due to parts shortages. I hope this doesn’t end up being vaporware.

But the price tag? OUCH!!!!…

The US distributor, Other World Computing, is offering pre-orders on two versions of the Modbook: Fast (2.0GHz Core 2 Duo processor, 80G hard drive) for $2279, and Faster (2.16GHz Core 2 Duo with a 120G hard drive) for $2579. Hey, I only paid $1000 for my Macbook! Well, I know innovation costs, but at that price I think I’ll wait for the second or third iteration of this product to make sure the main bugs are worked out.

But I’m still dreaming of an Apple tablet….

(UPDATE July 31: Looks like one option, the Axiotron Modbook, is coming later this year, with a huge price tag…) 

Yeah, the iPhone is cool and all… I’ve seen a few friends playing with theirs, and I’ve even played with one a bit, but it’s not for me.

First of all, I’m not a phone person. Talking on the phone is not my favorite thing to do. I limit my phone use to catching up with family and friends, coordinating with people while traveling, and phone meetings with clients and colleagues.

Second of all, I really want a good mobile content creation and publishing system. I guess I never got over being inspired by Max Headroom. The iPhone just doesn’t do it for me in that regard — that tiny touchpad keyboard, too-small screen for easy web browsing, no inputs for video or audio devices, grrrrr.

What I need is a good tablet PC. Something small enough to carry easily, versatile enough to deal with many kinds of content and connections (wifi, cell, ethernet, USB, Bluetooth), and something I can type or sketch on easily.

Not just that, I want Apple to produce a great tablet PC…

I’m hooked on the Mac OS, and would cringe at returning to anything resembling Windows. In fact, at BlogHer this weekend I was just telling Chris Carfi and Jack Vinson how much I want an Apple tablet.

Apple’s working on it — or at least, they’re thinking about it.. Back in February 2006 Engadget reported on a US Patent Office filing from Apple for just such a device. And then… nothing happened.

Hmph.

On July 10, Macscoop floated a tantalizing rumor that Apple is working on an ultra-thin, ultra-light notebook computer. Unnamed sources told Macscoop the mythical device would feature a 12-inch display, be half as thick as a 12-inch Powerbook, and weigh just 3 pounds.

That sounds intriguing, but in my heart I know it’s not what I really want. I want my Apple tablet. Something maybe 2-3 times the size of an iPhone display, with an interface that combines the best of the iPhone and the iPod plus a usable keyboard. (And if they offered a Dvorak option, so much the better.)

Maybe someday…

The problem: Most of the content I’ve created does not live on my computer. It’s all over the web — my own blogs, comments to others’ blogs, my clients’ blogs, forums, e-mail lists, social media sites, media-sharing services, podcasts, wikis…. You get the picture. Consequently, I run the risk of “losing” much of the fruit of my hard work. In fact, that’s already happened. Sites or forums I contributed to years ago no longer exist. Blog comments don’t get indexed well by search engines and vanish into the ether.

Imagine this solution: A web-based service where I could archive all my content similar to Furl, only I could choose to make all or part of my archive public and shareable because it’s my content, not violating others’ copyright. Every piece of my content would get a unique, permanent URL, so I don’t have to worry if a site dies or changes. Any post I make to a forum or e-mail list would also get stored there (not the whole thread with others’ work, just my contribution).

And I could tag it all, share it selectively, generate feeds, and apply analysis tools to it. Plus incorporate whatever new cools tools come down the pike.

I want it. I want it bad. Do you, too? Does it already exist somewhere and I don’t know about it? Please comment below.