RSS growing pains

I'm relieved to see that I'm not the only one who's still figuring out an easy way to consume content via RSS. I have tried Web-based services (bloglines), a standalone news aggregator (FeedDemon), and browser-based solutions (Firefox) and none seemed to be especially useful. Safari 2.0 seems to be a breakthrough by elegantly incorporating feeds into the browser, a la Firefox, but somehow easier to manage. I have also mentally begun categorizing feeds better, focusing more on blogs and less on RSS feeds from media outlets, which quickly overwhelm with their high volumes.

Jason Preston acknowledges these difficulties, saying that RSS feeds take up a "weird limbo in web-space" which I think accurately captures the RSS gestalt. Preston happens to favor the browser as the RSS aggregator tool, as do I. But there are three other ways to consume RSS feeds--Web-based, plug-ins to email programs (a la Newsgator), or standalone apps. Further, there are strong arguments that the feed IS the content, regardless of where it happens to be consumed. And here's an excellent post by Wired's editor Chris Anderson on how he consumes over 150 RSS feeds and the role bloggers play in filtering content (and coping with information overload).

But, you know, this isn't as easy as it looks. Picking the software. Getting used to it. Picking the right feeds. Judging that fine distinction of how some feeds can act as information filters, whereas others will just clog your aggregator. Organizing your feeds. Constantly battling against information overload. Having yet another thing to check each day.

My colleague Gary Mintchell, who writes an excellent blog on factory automation and technology, pointed out to me that his children are grown and out of the house, ergo, he can sip coffee and comb his feeds every morning whilst I, with my three small children, must race around getting clothes on, making lunches, and dropping kids off at school. Chris Anderson, early adopter that he is, devotes an hour a day to checking out 150+ feeds.

Although I can't keep up with Chris or Gary, I finally feel like I've hit my groove in the RSS content consumption department. This is after 6 months of struggling with different tools, and even different ways to organize my feeds so as avoid information overload. Baby steps compared to Gary and Chris, but a start nonetheless.

As a publisher, I can't wait for the day our readers switch to RSS and we can stop using email.
In fact, some vendors, like SilverPop, are riffing on a synthesis of RSS and email, combining the targeted nature of email with the sure-fire delivery of RSS. As B2B publishers, we desperately need tools like this. But all RSS tools worthless to publishers until the day that most of our readers consume content via RSS.

And that day is a LONG way out.

Just like it took mainstream users about five years to get comfortable with the Web (using Web browsers, sending and receiving email, buying stuff on Amazon), I'd argue that it will take five years before RSS consumption goes mainstream. Even when the tools are mature, there's the simple lag time before people adjust to consuming content this way. Most of our readers will have to struggle the same way I did in understanding how to use these tools and consume content efficiently via RSS. I can't emphasize how a huge adjustment this will be. For people used to the paper periodical publishing and consumption metaphor, RSS is a totally different metaphor. And that's before you throw in mixed modes like audio (podcasting) and video (video podcasting). My head hurts just thinking about it.

Older Web users may never adopt RSS as a way to consume content on a daily basis.

It reminds me of the Internet procurement boom of the late '90s....just because technology enabled B2B portals (a la VerticalNet) to come into existence didn't mean readers changed their procurement habbits overnight. Quite the opposite--to borrow from Woody Allen, they stayed away in droves. The technology was simply way ahead of human nature.

With RSS, so it is again. As liberating as RSS promises to be, there are quite a few obstacles in the way of widespread RSS adoption. Technology, I fear, is the least among them.

GoogleBase and B2B publishing

Google launched its GoogleBase database service last week. Unlike the Web, which is awash in unstructured information that's crawlable by a search engine robot like Googlebot, GoogleBase allows anyone to set up their own structured database (with fields and records) right inside Google.

This is potentially mind blowing, depending on how it catches on with users. Just like people make a living now selling stuff on eBay without so much as a Web site, it is conceivable that a new breed of information publisher can make a living by housing a structured database on Google. No Web site necessary.

This is potentially a threat to traditional B2B information publishers with specialized databases. To say nothing of the fact that Google owns the display ad space against that content.

We all need more time to grasp the implications of this move, and to see how quickly it catches on with users who publish structured information via GoogleBase. Right now, most of the categories seem to be consumerish ("recipes") or classified-related (cars, jobs).

For some informed opinions, I recommend reading recent posts regarding GoogleBase from database publishing guru Russell Perkins and Forrester analyst Charlene Li.

What magazine publishers should do about e-paper

Digital paper, e-paper, electronic paper, call it what you will. It's been long in coming, and won't be here any time soon. I saw an actual example last year at the Seybold conference in San Francisco, and the "screen" was small and monochromatic (black and white). Yet it's a start. The technology won't be relevant to magazine publishers until the screens become 9x11, high-resolution color and flexible.

However, one day that will come. And when it does, watch out--this is the ultimate disruptive technology.

What if you could drop your printing, paper and postage costs from your bottom line? Yes, early on, that was the conventional wisdom about the first generation of Web sites, but a Web site is NOT a satisfactory replacement for a magazine.

But an e-paper magazine is.

Finally, publishers are starting to formally study the impact of e-paper on the publishing business. Industry veteran Bob Sacks, who leads the study, was quoted in the Folio: article above as saying:

“I am convinced that we are in a critical technological moment for our industry,” says Sacks. “I've talked about the publishers, whose only real franchise is content. I've talked about an international wireless infrastructure. I've talked about digital magazines and the reprocessing of material over multiple platforms—e-paper will empower all of the above and more.”

Studying the technology is a good first start. But I've long felt that publishers need to do far more than sit back and wait for it to mature.

What if periodical publishers of all stripes--consumer and B2B, magazine and newspapers--formed a huge consortium to massively fund the development of the technology? If all publishers globally banded together and put resources into this technology, we could accelerate the day when we no longer must pay for printing, paper and postage.

Equally as important, Adobe or Quark (or both) should start working with such a consortium to evolve a new sort of page description language--the function that HTML does on the Web or that Postscript does in print--that would become the defacto electronic output format. That has huge implications in and of itself--imagine, the same person who designs your print publication would also design your e-publication. No new tools to learn.

I'm not sure how many years off this development is, or whether it will even occur in my lifetime.

That said--I don't believe paper-and-ink publishing will ever go away, even when this e-paper nirvana arrives. Electronic publishing is inherently a pull medium rather than a push. Users must opt in to your content. Printers, paper companies and postal services have nothing to worry about. Publishers will still need to supplement their opt-in circ numbers with physical distribution. Said another way--if you find that a big enough chunk of your readers isn't reading your issue each month (and you'll certainly know!) on their e-paper gizmatron 5000 devices, you will still want to print up hardcopy versions and mail it to them to make sure they see it--and so you can count it in your total audience number.

Of course, print-on-demand periodical publishing is here to help with that too.

A new science

Following up on my previous post, we need a new science of how users decide what to consume when foraging for information on the Internet. As I read through the current issue of Shelf Impact!, our digital publication targeted at consumer packaged goods marketers, I was struck by how closely those companies study their consumers.

If you think about consumers shopping in a grocery store, there are many parallels with consuming information on the Web: Consumers are usually in a hurry, have a good idea of what they want to find going in, experience sensory overload during their consumption experience (bombarded with 30,000 items in a typical shopping visit), and give each purchase decision only a few seconds.

In response to such a brutal environment, packaged goods marketers have evolved the study of consumers to a high art, going far beyond mere focus groups and instead actually living with consumers as they shop and use their products.

As publishers, I think we can benefit from the same in-depth study of our consumers so we cam really understand how readers decide when to give their attention. We need to actually sit with readers as they embark on a normal online information consumption experience, and talk to them about it.

What follows was taken from an article published in a recent issue of of Shelf Impact! of E&J Gallo Winery studies consumers, but adapted (by me) to the field of online publishing.

1. Have icebreakers prepared. Get into your interviewee’s mind-set. Ask what their top three concerns are right now. Ask open-ended questions (and enjoy silent interludes). Mine interviewees for their moods and values.

2. Once online, what do they click on, and why? When do they decide to start a search at a major engine like Google vs. going directly to a more vertical information site like a publisher's? How do they find the specific content that they're looking for? What is their strategy? What attributes, do they use to compare among links that might fit what they're looking for?

3. Watch how information is consumed. How does the interviewee use the content? How many clicks? How deep do they go? Are they more linear or more hypertextual? Was anything awkward, unusual, or unexpected?

4. Debrief the interview. Review your notes for those “aha” moments. Which behaviors and assumptions were confirmed? What this user typical or unusual? Compare notes with users who were studied.

5. Recap the project. This should be done before the end of the week of the interviews, while information and observations are fresh.

6. Create a record. Include visual stimulations, and create a video record or even a photo album of your encounter with each consumer who was interviewed.

The hard part, of course, is translating insights gained from such a study into a stellar user experience that benefits the user and the publisher. But armed with such information, publishers will have a much stronger idea of what works, possibly leading to entirely new paradigms of how to publish online.

In this era of information overload, users are forming information filtration and consumption patterns that we must understand if we're going to serve them properly.

What I learned at Folio: 2005

Just back from the Folio: show in New York held Nov. 1-3 and wanted to share what I learned.

First, a curious observation about the show. There was no digital media/Web track. A curious omission, considering it's one of the fastest growing parts of our businesses. There were individual Web presentations (such as mine), but they were shoe-horned willy nilly into the Sales track, editorial track, circ track, or wherever.

The sessions themselves didn't seem terribly exciting...I only found a few that seemed worth attending, but then again, that's because I'm a Web guy and the pickins were slim.

One thing that was interesting: A potentially new way to prove print advertising ROI: Compare direct traffic to an advertiser's Web site vs. that of a non-advertiser. This gem came from Todd Christenson, Publisher of Electronic Products magazine at Hearst Business Media. His point: It's a fallacy (says he) that the single largest source of traffic to a given Web site is from Google. That may be the single largest source of referral traffic, but direct traffic (when people type in a URL or use a bookmark) always outweighs referral traffic from any given engine. And when you compare direct traffic of print advertisers vs. non-advertisers, the former outweighs the latter. In fact, Todd has set up his own Direct Traffic ROI Web site that illustrates the idea. If you are a print publisher or salesperson, contact Todd for his powerpoint with a case study. Well worth it.

Another stand-out was my fortuitous discovery of a vendor called IQR. Their value proposition is to help publishers unlock potential revenues in their circ files by using that as a starting point for building a proprietary database (buzzword: rich data). Most publishers (ourselves included) may have deep domain expertise in their industries or fields, but lack the expertise to identify and build out complex data sets that would have financial value. IQ purports to help in this regard, and they've already helped several publishers in Europe. They told me the have a project underway with IDG right here in the U.S. This seems to me a great way for publishers to get into the rich data game.

Finally, a nifty idea I picked up from email service provider Real Magnet. They purport to be able to track clickthrough activity of subscribers after they clickthrough to the advertiser's site. In other words, once they leave the publisher's site, a publisher can still continue to report how many pages (and which pages) the person clicked on the advertiser's site. How? By asking the advertiser to install a small snippet of javascript on any page on which they want to track activity from the publisher. I think this is a brilliant idea, and there's nothing magical about it. It should be standard functionality from all email service providers. Downside: Despite its appeal, my guess is that few advertisers would actually add special code to their sites (no matter how simple it is) for the sole purpose of tracking one specific campaign. We can barely get them to submit their ads on time. Modifying code on their Web sites? Not likely.