Malcolm Coles on Newspaper websites and RSS feeds/Twitter

Re-posted on Journalism.co.uk, Malcolm Cole has a post on why newspapers should turn off their RSS feeds.

An extract:

'...only 3 of the 9 national newspapers have an RSS feed with more than 10,000 subscribers in Google Reader.

And most newspaper RSS feeds have readerships in the 00s, if that.

Daily Mail columnist Melanie Phillips has just 11 subscribers to her RSS feed (maybe there's hope for the UK population yet ...).

Despite having virtually no users, the Mail churns out 160 RSS feeds and the Mirror 280. All so a couple of thousand people can look at them in total...'

I'm not too well versed in the technical elements, but surely a news organisation would need to balance the amount of time and effort that goes into creating and maintaining RSS feeds - which may be very little once you've got them ingrained into the fabric of your site - with the number of readers using them. If maintenance is low, then perhaps that could offset the fact that, as Coles found out, a small proportion of readers are using them.

I've personally used Google Reader, and Bloglines beforehand, for a couple of years. I've become irritated when I come across a blog or site I like to find it's without RSS feeds, and I'll be unlikely to visit it again, if only because I don't utilise my 'Favourites'.

RSS feeds are from perfect, and it's good to see the Online Journalism Blog supporting a 'BBC Free' campaign to try and persuade the organisation to publish full RSS feeds (i.e. with the entire article, pictures and video), rather than simply the title and summary. There seems, on the face of it, no reason not to include full posts on an RSS feed.

However, there is a potential problem for newspapers and revenue-generating sites. Although it is possible to advertise on feeds, very few sites do: I can only think of a handful from over 150 feeds I have that do. On occasion, it can cluter the post to the extent of putting the user off.

But, if full posts are included in an RSS feed, there is no reason for the user to click through - and thus, they don't see or interact with any adverts. Therefore, the site generates no revenue from those users viewing that post. Obviously this isn't a problem for the BBC, but it RSS feeds were used even more widely then it potentially could be, or would at least have the effect of forcing more advertising on feeds.

Coles suggests newspapers should use their Twitter feeds instead of RSS feeds, giving the following reasons:

• Wheat vs chaff As a reader, you can see which stories other people are RTing and are therefore popular.
• Context There's space in 140 characters for newspapers to give some background to stories as well as the headline (well, there is for those that don't just stick the first few words of the standfirst after the headline).
• Promotion Followers can RT newspaper stories, promoting the paper - they can't do this with elements of an RSS feed.
• Tracking Stories' development can be tracked on Twitter - you can't usually tell what's changed in an RSS feed.
• Conversation You can take part in a conversation on Twitter. People only talk to their RSS feed when they swear at it. The journalists behind the story can tweet, too.

From a personal perspective, I prefer to keep the two separate. If a Twitter page simply repeats links to blog posts, I see no reason to subscribe to it if it's already in my feed reader. Take, for example, Andrew Sullivan's 'Daily Dish' (@dailydish): probably my favourite blog, which I read daily. Subscribe to the feed, but the Twitter page simply reproduces the blog posts. I see no reason to clutter up an already busy field of posts with little more than a mini RSS feed. I prefer to subscribe to individuals, or some organisations. If I had to follow all the newspapers, commentators or websites I've got my RSS feed on Twitter, I'd probably more than double the number of Twitter feeds I'm following. It can be hard enough to wade through it at the moment.

Coles mentions promotion: although I admit that it's not in the same class as it's not public, but Google Reader has a very easy share or email features on every post, allowing the user to instantly promote it.

However, I think the most important reason for using RSS feeds rather than Twitter for newspaper and website articles is one I already mentioned - clicking through. Few stories can be told in 140 characters, and therefore a link is provided to the site. In the case of what we could call 'complete' RSS feeds, the full post already appears. Therefore the full text, subheadings and multimedia is in front of the user, not necessitating a click through. This removes an additional barrier between the user and the material.

Matt Wardman, writing at The Wardman Wire, has fisked Coles' post, here's just some points:

8 - If newspapers want to turn off their feeds as part of a “circling the wagons” strategy to try and guard their revenue model than they are simply taking a blind leap 10 years backwards and will vanish down a deeper black hole than the one they are already in. In one way, as a news and politics blogger, I’d be delighted if some of the competition went away. If they must restrict the content, then let them move to Excerpt or Headline feeds.

9 - One point you haven’t addressed - RSS is archiveable, and I can read it offline if I use a suitable reader.

As Matt also notes, there is no reason not to use both. I don't expect newspapers to be that interactive with their RSS feeds, and I'm not sure I'd want their Twitter feeds to be as Coles recommends. Twitter works because of it's ability to act as a platform for a conversation, for recommendations and refutations. RSS feeds work because they offer a complete picture and a simply means of keeping track of your favourite sites. I'm happy keeping them separate for the sake of usability.