The upcoming launch of AdSense for RSS has sparked an explosion of outrage throughout the internet (especially in places like Digg). Many of the Diggers complained that RSS is no place for ads, and that the world is coming to an end because feeds will have, the horror, ads in them.

Listen up: Don’t expect to get good content for nothing. If you want to read full content in your RSS reader, expect to start seeing more ads. Many feeds already have ads in them, and the publishers have every right to put them there. Are you paying for the content? Probably not. So why are you complaining about some unobtrusive contextual ads?

The core principal behind RSS is to provide notification of new content. While it’s true that full article content can be offered in a feed, don’t get bent out of shape if it isn’t. You either get summaries, or full feeds with ads. Yes, there are a lot of sites that don’t mind giving away content for free, and aren’t too worried about everyone seeing ads (myself included), but don’t expect everyone to be that way. You’re given ad-free RSS feeds because the publisher wants to; you don’t have a “right” to have ad-free content. If you don’t like it, you can unsubscribe.

In my opinion, the full RSS feed concept is flawed. I believe RSS is supposed to serve as a notification of new content, not a way of getting content without visiting the actual website. (Note that the Webmaster-Source feed is full anyway, as a convenience for people who don’t share my reasoning.) The way I normally use RSS is to have just article titles, which click through to the web location of the article. NewsFire for the Mac OS can be set-up this way, and the MyNT RSS reader works much the same way by default. I prefer to visit the article on the actual website, both to support the website, and to view the content as originally intended.

On the Digg page regarding AdSense for RSS, several users immediately started giving advice on how to block the ads via the Windows HOSTS file, and saying that the AdBlock developers had better get going and write software to remove ads from RSS. (Some of the Diggers have some sense, though, and have left comments pointing out the idiocy of the anti-ad arguments.) Let it be noted that I’ve defended AdBlock on a few occasions in the past. However, there is some merit to the argument that blocking ads is stealing from the publisher. I do not blanket-block ads. I do use AdBlock to nuke particularly irritating advertisements on occasion, but I think it’s rather selfish to insist on not having any ads at all. As tempting as it is to block every network ad imaginable, I don’t do it. Plugins like AdBlock shouldn’t even be “necessary.” It’s the publishers’ responsibility to not place annoying ads. If they don’t keep ads to a tolerable level, by all means, strip the ads out with AdBlock.

There’s a scientific term that’s fitting here: “There is no free lunch.” If you’re not paying a subscription, why are you complaining about some ads? I can see complaining about Forbes.com, but what about a site with reasonable ads?

Today is RSS Awareness Day (an idea of Daniel Scocco’s). The goal is to spread RSS, teaching non-bloggers about the technology, and showing them how it could benefit them. You can do this however you want. Simply post this video, or go beyond that.

Since a large portion of this blog’s readers already know what RSS is, I can’t really write a post like that, can I? I had to think of something else to do.

Bloggers are possibly the biggest users of RSS. Superbloggers, or A-List bloggers if you prefer to call them that, often have insanely large amounts of feeds in their aggregators, and check them throughout the day. They become addicted to their feeds, and absolutely have to check them at least once a day. But RSS makes it possible to keep track of so many sites. You have more favorite sites, since you have more time to check on them. If you’re not addicted to RSS feeds yet, you’re doing something wrong.

Here are some links for those of you who are addicted to RSS and want your readers to be as well. (more…)

I just thought of an interesting idea.

The standard RSS icon is available in a 128×128 pixel size. Using Photoshop, you could reduce it to 125×125 easily, and add a legend to it. Put the name of your blog, or something describing your blog (in my case, “Webmaster Resources”) over the bottom of the icon. Make it visible, but don’t cover-up the antenna symbol. (I’d give an example, but I don’t have a copy of Photoshop on this computer yet.)

Next, purchase a 125×125 ad slot on another blog, give them your ad creative, and tell them to link it to your RSS feed.

What do you think? Would it work well? Obviously this would work better with FeedBurner feeds, since clickers will get a list of recent posts. Some bloggers could reject your ad though, out of fear that viewers would confuse your ad for their feed link.

Web applications, or web apps, have, in my opinion, one huge advantage over “normal” programs. I’m sure you can guess what it is before you finish reading this.

I just got a new Apple MacBook, as I’ve Twittered about, told everyone I know on Facebook, and all but made a T-Shirt that says “I have a MacBook.” I’ve been trying to adjust to the new (to me) platform, and adapt my daily patterns.

Surprisingly, I haven’t had many problems with old Windows habits (e.g. reaching to the top-right corner to close a window). My biggest issues have been with software. Some familiar applications have Mac versions thankfully. (If there wasn’t a Mac version of Firefox, I wouldn’t have been so quick to want to get a Mac.)

I had to find some Mac equivalents of some programs, like NeoOffice to replace Microsoft Works, and CyberDuck to replace FileZilla. (FileZilla is great, and there is a Mac version, but it behaves oddly, lacking a normal window, and extending down from the menu bar.)

Luckily, my transition (so far) has been easier than it could have been, thanks to web apps. I use Google Apps for my email, so I didn’t have to migrate my email to Apple’s Mail App. I use my own MyNT RSS reader for my feed reading needs, so, again, I was okay there. (On a related note, MyNT 2.0 is in the works, and it will be a couple lightyears ahead of the current iteration.) If not for MyNT, I’d have had to find a good feed aggregator for Mac OS X, and then muck around with CSV or OPML export/import to move my feeds over. (more…)

Feedburner recently reported that they track around 60 million RSS subscribers. Even if we bump that number to 70 million RSS users (counting people that use RSS with other applications or platforms) this would still convert to a meager 5,4% of the Internet users around the world, as of today. (Daily Blog Tips)

That’s not good, is it? 95% of web users still visit sites manually every day, checking the same sites every day for updates. With RSS, you can, at a glance, see if a site has been updated, without visiting it by hand. The web comes to you, instead of you going to the web. It’s time to spread RSS.

RSS Awareness Day is Daniel Scocco’s latest crackpot brilliant idea to increase his subscriber count, er, improve the internet.

Really, you don’t even have to link to Daily Blog Tips to participate. Daniel is working on a site for the event over at rssday.org.

The goal is to get as many people using RSS as possible, so the event works like this: (more…)

Looking for a good RSS icon for your site? You could go with the standard one, or use a variant that looks similar, without being so unrecognizable people won’t know it’s an RSS button.

GloryInLife’s 51 RSS Buttons

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Back in January, I asked how you like your RSS feeds. We ended up with some interesting results.

48% (10 votes) said they preferred full feeds. This is something that most of you would expect. People tend to demand full feeds quite often.

10% (2 votes) said they like summarized feeds. Out of the total 21 votes, I was quite surprised that even that many like summarized feeds. You don’t often hear people saying that. Also, when I used FeedDemon for a week, I really did prefer the full feeds.

29% (6 votes) voted for “I don’t care, I use Firefox Live Bookmarks or MyNT.” It’s nice to see that plenty of people like to read RSS feeds the way I prefer. It really is an efficient way to check your feeds. My experiment with FeedDemon did, however, show that the MyNT experience (which is similar to Live Bookmarks) could do with some improvement. And improvement it shall get.

Three of those who voted (14%) are real wise-guys. “Lightly toasted”?

As you probably know by now, the popular RSS reader FeedDemon is now free. The maker, NewsGator, has decided to start making money solely off their enterprise customers. So they decided to make FeedDemon available to anyone who wants it (don’t worry, it’s still in active development).

I decided to take this as an opportunity to compare “normal” feed readers with my own MyNT RSS reader. How? I kept a record of the amount of time it took to read my RSS feeds for a total of one week (using MyNT). Next, I repeated the test with FeedDemon. Here is a chart of the results:

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I used to use Firefox’s Live Bookmarks. It was a great way to read RSS feeds, or it was until my feed collection got too big. Now I use MyNT, which works in a similar manner. When you read feeds in MyNT, you middle-click items to open the post in a new tab (like using Live Bookmarks). That’s how I read my RSS feeds.

There are masses of RSS-users who like to read entire blog posts in their reader, though some like summaries better.

So… What group are you in? Are you a full-feed-fanatic, a Live Bookmarks/MyNT maniac, or do you prefer summaries?

I’ve found that the best way to teach blog readers about RSS is to link to a great video I found.

RSS in Plain English does a great job at explaining RSS in a simple, visual manner. The whole thing is done on a whiteboard, with a voiceover and pre-made bits of paper.

The video has everything someone needs to know to understand RSS, and get started using it. CommonCraft.com (the maker of the video) recommends Google Reader, and provides instructions on creating an account and adding feeds, though the video also shows URLs for alternatives.

It’s a great video, and I think Lee LeFever really found the best metaphor to describe RSS: It’s like Netflix, for the web. Instead of going and looking for content (e.g. going to Blockbuster) the content comes to you.