RSS Appreciation Day

Ike Pigott, a public affairs officer with the Red Cross in Birmingham, Alabama, has a bright idea. He's working to bring his organization's constituents into the RSS world by giving them a free Red-Cross branded RSS reader. The reader, powered by Newsplorer, delivers relevant real-time media alerts to the community. It even includes audio updates. Robert French gushes about the program over here.

Those of us who work in PR and use RSS feeds daily need to take some responsibility in getting everyone else on our teams using a feed reader. RSS is the single most important information tool to land on a PR pro's desktop - or web-top - this decade. I can't think of a single technology since the Web browser that has revolutionized how I keep up to date with my world. Ike is taking this to a new level by bringing RSS to his constituents. Now it's our turn.

This isn't just a ball that PR pros should carry. All of us who use RSS daily and love it should encourage those around us to use feeds. What if we made Monday, May 1 RSS Appreciation Day? Each of us will commit to getting at least one of our friends, colleagues or family using a feed reader. Thoughts? Ideas?

Comments

[Mike]

I'm forwarding this post to the President of the Philippine Internet Commerce Society. She's an RSS user. :)

[Rick Turoczy]

Maybe I'm too much of a geek... scratch that. I know I'm too much of a geek, but to me, May 1 is always about putting flowers in cheesy paper baskets and hanging them on people's doorknobs. But on the Web, I always think about Reboot (www.may1reboot.com) as the May 1 activity.

What about July 7? Why July 7, you ask? 7 is R and S on your phone keypad. Makes as much sense as anything else.

[Ike]

Thanks for the mention, Steve.

Here is a link to the download if anyone wants to see it in action.

[jeremyet]

Great Idea - I'm teaching my boss about the internet (me: "What do you want to know?" Him "Everything." We've set up a blog to ease this process and he is buying his first personal computer this weekend. After teaching him how to search, RSS is next on the list, and perhaps I'll even make the 1st may deadline.

Jeremyey

[Derek Hodge]

Leave it until next year (7.7.7)

[Daniel]

As a new user of RSS, and new blogger myself, I can foresee endless possibilities in the use of syndicated web content. An RSS Appreciation Day sounds like a great way to really spread the word about RSS. In a previous post you highlighted the fact that a significant number of people don't even know what RSS is, much less use it.

However, I propose a date change, as well. It may be better to honor the "official" date on which RSS came into existence or use. There is an RSS timeline that notes key dates in the history of RSS. Perhaps number 4 would be good, version 0.92. This would make July 10 a good date for RSS Appreciation Day.

[Frank Mash]

Hey Steve, nice idea. May be more RSS aware user would mean less explaining to do to new comers?

[David@mokum]

The struggle is that it you need to achieve three things with people who don't use RSS:
Explain what it is
Explain why it is valuable
Get the set up in some way

It really needs a kind of interactive set up wizard that gives you a snapshot tutorial and configures your first feed. Any nerds out there who can do this?
I think you could sell that.

[Marshall Kirkpatrick]

I turn people on to RSS every chance I get and I find that nothing beats a visual demonstration. Towards that end I've set up an account at http://newsgator.com username: marshalldemo pw: welcome for folks to get some idea what the inside of a feed reader can look like.

I've also made a long post to my personal blog on how I teach RSS. It was quite well recieved and can be found at: http://marshallk.com/teaching-rss-a-discussion

I agree that the usefulness of RSS is almost endless and find it frustrating that a larger number of people don't use it.

[Rick Turoczy]

Sorry to continue the tangential discussion, but... I still think the best description of RSS that I've ever heard is "TiVo for the Web." When I first heard it, I liked it, but I was sure it was too high-tech. I mean, who knows TiVo?

Well, apparently, everyone.

No matter who I encounter, (my mom, people at work, random people on the street to whom I start babbling) I use the little "TiVo for the Web" phrase and I see the light bulb light.

Now, where were we?

[Paul Watson]

Good idea. Though could we drop the RSS bit and stick to Feed?

[Don Crowley]

May 1st might be a very good idea at maing evryone aware that now is the time to start showing people how good RSS is. With Internet Explorer7 coming out this year and it has built in RSS functionality and Vistas built in RSS functions it really will be big. But those who know what it is and how it works need to start showiing everyone around them how this works. Er and teach don't preach ;-)

[Eric Weaver]

Great viral idea, Steve! You should get others like Scoble, Steve Hall at AdRants, the BlogBusinessSummit folks, Niall Cook, Don Thorsen, Pete Cashmore, Om and others to help you evangelize it. I'm happy to help

[Adam Broitman]

I am all for RSS appreciation day although, I try and create a new RSS fan everyday!

Anyhow, I love the effort and want to say thanks for helping bring RSS to masses

[James Gross]

How about Feed Appreciation Day?

You have a feedburner feed yourself, which if you have "smart feed" turned on, will convert your feed into RSS or Atom depending on the feed readers client's preference.

Without fightint over standards, etc. make it Feed Day, in the end we want people to appreciate XML syndication technologies, not necessarily "RSS".

[Alex Barnett]

Nice idea Steve. I'd like to support this with one suggestion - Let's go with Syndication Day. All embracing, inclusive, loving and appreciating *all* syndication formats :-)