Is Twitter Killing RSS?

Jul 30, 2009
48 Comments

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Rescue Icon: RSSIs RSS dead?

Like the death of blogging, the demise of RSS has been proclaimed–methinks a bit prematurely.

Not too long ago, I felt overwhelmed at the number of feeds in my reader. I felt shut down by it. Rather than just cull feeds from it, I decided to try a little experiment.

I ditched my reader altogether: no feeds. I figured I was getting everything I really needed from Twitter. If it was worth paying attention to, I’d see it float by in tweet stream.

After all, most of the bloggers I was reading in my reader are on Twitter, so if they posted to their blogs, I’d know it because they’d tweet it.

At least, that’s what I thought.

It’s been well over three months since I even looked at Google Reader. What happened? Did the experiment work?

The reality was that I missed a lot of the stuff I would have wanted to see and possibly share with others. And it wasn’t because those I followed didn’t tweet their posts–no doubt most of them did. I just didn’t see all the tweets.

I’m sure it’s partly because I’m following over 2,000 people. Even my “Inner Sanctum” group in TweetDeck is populous enough so that I miss too many tweets. I suppose I could be following fewer people, but I didn’t think that would solve the problem. When I finally leave my full-time job in mid September, I don’t plan to spend my entire day in front of TweetDeck hoping I don’t miss something as it shoots by in the firehose tweet-gush.

And some bloggers didn’t tweet about their posts, so there was no tweet to miss. I just missed out. Some of my friends are active on Twitter at entirely different times of the day compared to me. We were like ships passing in the night unaware of each other.

I decided I’ve had enough.

It was a good experiment, a good effort to see if I could live without a reader, live without direct consumption of RSS feeds, but ultimately it was a failed experiment.

I found myself missing posts from people even when I followed them on Twitter. Even when I had them in a group on TweetDeck. Posts from Men with Pens, Sonia Simone, Naomi, Dave Navarro, and others simply never got seen or read by me.

The other day, I realized I didn’t even know what James and gang were up to.

So, now I’ve reacquainted myself with Google Reader and I’m back in the action. I’ve learned that while Twitter is great for many things, it’s no replacement for RSS, yet.

Long live RSS!

Anyone else tried to ditch their readers for Twitter? Thoughts?


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  • How does Twitter kill RSS? The majority of the people who come to my site do not use Twitter, but anybody can see an RSS feed.

    Vicek Singhal
    How To Make Linkwheels
  • I don't see that Twitter will kill RSS. Don't know about you folks but I find that when I'm able to login to Twitter, nearly all tweets are ads of one sort or another.
  • Twitter is not even close to replacing my RSS feeds.

    Targeted Traffic & Website Promotion Services
  • Mike Korner
    Twitter will not kill RSS, just as RSS has not killed e-mail. While I definitely see value in Twitter, RSS is way better suited for my needs as a reader. With RSS, I can effectively keep up with what has grown to over 500 feeds. While I only religiously read about 50 of the feeds (including Remarkablogger :), a good RSS reader allows me to quickly skim hundreds (or even thousands) of posts. RSS feed previews -- most of which are longer than 140 characters -- save me time and help me quickly determine if I will click to read the full post. I'm thinking that most of the bloggers I follow like having more than 140 characters with which to influence whether I read their full posts. When I get behind on my reading, I can quickly skim previews for one feed or for all feeds with a given tag (which equates to a folder in Google Reader). Finally, I love reading a preview of a podcast and having the link to the MP3 right there. If the preview seems interesting, I download. If not, I mark it read and move on. So, for me, Twitter will not kill RSS. Personally, I think the better question is whether Twitter will kill e-mail. It won't, but I think that is a better question.
  • It's interesting, because I've taken this same course. I cleared out my reader and then ended up loading it back up again. I just haven't found a good alternate method. I have, however, surveyed my visitors, and I've been told more than once that they just follow me on Twitter and do not use RSS any longer either, so it definitely seems to be going around. RSS readers can be overwhelming. Just get more liberal with clicking "mark all as read". That does the trick for me :)
  • I don't think Twitter has killed RSS, or blog subscriptions in general (like email options). Twitter is great as a teaser for a blog post, and I see a lot of my traffic come from there.

    Where I do think Twitter is having an adverse effect on blogs is in the comments section (present company excluded, obviously!). I find a lot of visitors read the post then respond via Twitter, as opposed to leaving a comment. It's cool that the post is still being discussed, but it'd be even cooler if it was being discussed in the comments where everyone could join in. :)
  • Great points, Danny. It's no wonder Disqus is gaining in popularity, as it does a good job of integrating all that business. I've thought about using it here.
  • My answer is "YES, it's killing RSS".
  • i agree with joseph, rss versus tweet, like mars and venus, we know there's something in the middle. rss doesn't pull mainstream like tweet, but we're still talking about 2 different time zones, maybe we app "cizzers"...
  • i am getting most of my traffic from twitter only and it really rocks. but i do have couple of readers and it helps me to build relationship. anyway nice post buddy really like it
  • Unfortunately, I think RSS and Twitter are both on the way out. Just have no idea of what is coming next
  • Michael,
    I think Twitter will neither kill RSS nor blogging (recent assumption by others that microblogging will take over). Some things are just not possible unless a better, solid, reliable solution is proven, after a 'reasonable' period of time. Your experience is well understood, it does seem like Twitter has a lot of 'similarities' in carrying out some tasks, but just like John, I'm a Email subscriber too, and also a RSS fan. Twitter is an 'extra' from our usual RSS, that I'll agree.

    Of course, things work out differently for some. There's no definite answer in this. As long things are working out fine and suit that individual, that's a good method for him/her.

    @wchingya
    Social/Blogging Tracker
  • I feel that all these social tools compliment each other. There´s a place for RSS, twitter, Facebook etc. and you should work with them all. Afterall, they work differently and have their own purposes.

    I think you can´t say one them is dead before there comes something that does exactly the same thing and somehow gets more popular than is predecessor and I don´t see that happening anytime soon with any of the big players.

    Still, I feel RSS being very important for blogs and it will continue to be that for a long time.
  • Trouble. That's what I've been up to ;)

    Want to know something? I stopped reading feeds two months ago and Twitter dropped off the same week as well. At first it was just a question of "Man, I don't have enough time for this," and then it was, "Well, I'm glad not to have to watch all those linkfest tweets go by," but...

    I miss the contact and break from isolation it provides. I miss reading up on my favorite people (Hey, what's Michael up to these days?) and chatting around, being sociable.

    I think we all - people in general, people in my peer group, colleagues, friends - just end up being way too busy with the crap that doesn't matter and forget that we really do need to stay in touch with the people we like and care about.

    Even if it is through a tweet :)
  • Yeah, I read about your escapades with Naomi. :)

    There certainly are plenty of times I take a break from Twitter (and email and feeds) in order to get things done. I know the number of feeds I follow will inevitably grow, but for now it's back down to a very small number, and they are all the people who matter most to me (like you guys).
  • TH
    As a business consultant and early adopter of emerging technologies, I can see how others might feel a little overwhelmed by the rapid pace in which these technologies are advancing, but I think it is way too early to proclaim any emerging technology dead. A large part of the population remains oblivious to RSS or how to use it and still can't comprehend Twitter let alone much of the content on this blog. For those of us who are clearly demonstrating the applicability of emerging technologies, some headway has been achieved albeit a lot more education is needed. In response to comments made about educating the public about these technologies, I am not so sure we are failing in this regard. From a business consulting perspective, more education is needed about the fundamental changes consumers are making with respect to how they gather information and make purchasing decisions. Within this context, those who are struggling to shift their paradigm around marketing will find the use of social technologies more palatable. Another thing to consider is that many people, even those who consult in this area, are still trying to master the mindful and purposeful use of blogs, feed aggregators, Twitter and RSS. With a solid and well thought out plan, all of these tools can work marvelously together. My projection is that in another year or two a lot more individuals will be successfully leveraging these tools as an integrative strategy and much of this knowledge will translate into practice. Let’s give it some more time! Thanks for starting a great conversation, Michael!
  • TH, thanks for adding your ideas to this. I can tell you've really thought about this! I think you will agree with me that this is all only the beginning. When you look at how many businesses are in the dark ages with this stuff, you know we've barely even begun.
  • When TwiTip first got started, I did a guest post on this very thing. It was interesting to see the comments. Some folks were very passionate in their view that RSS would never go away.

    I'm not saying that Twitter will necessarily replace RSS, but never say never!

    George
  • George, I don't think anything's changed much, in spite of all the change. :)
  • When it comes to the VAST majority of web users, RSS was dead from the beginning. Outside of the inner circle of techno weenies (myself included!) RSS was never really adopted in the mainstream. Twitter on the other hand has gained traction with everyone, from the hardcore techies to soccer moms or soccer grandmothers! But really, I have a fundamental problem with RSS. Taking content out of its natural habitat on the webpage it was created for and presenting it on an rss text feed can kill the presentation, specially for those bloggers who expertly include graphics, images, and style into their posts. And at the end of the day, people just don't use it. I have a few ecommerce sites unrelated to tch, and I have no rss subscribers, but I know a bunch of people find me and keep up on my updates to my site through twitter. And that is really a fundamental difference between the two. RSS is supposed to take your content and throw it out there aggregated with other site's content, to be read away from your web real estate. Twitter AT ITS BEST when used correctly, is a great tool for announcing things and getting traffic to your site to hook them in with your content.
    So in answer to your blog's question, twitter didn't kill RSS, RSS was DOA and Twitter doesn't even attempt to be RSS if you are using it correctly.
  • "Adding a tweet is like putting a leaf on a fast moving river – too quickly it is lost in the distance."

    Nice analogy Daniel.

    I don't think that RSS is dead, you don't have to login to anything to check out new content. Plus, Twitter is getting spammed.
  • I'm not a big fan of the RSS feeds in general... I know this might be a little sacrilegious in the blogosphere, but I much prefer getting subscriptions in email. I've found that I do find out about new posts from my favorite bloggers on twitter- sometimes 24 hrs before I get the official notice that they've been posted. I figure that the best content out there will hold my attention, and the few blogs that I totally love make me check their sites a couple times a week anyway, to see if there are any new posts that I have missed. I may start using my Google Reader more in the future... but for now I can definitely live without it.
  • I definitely prefer having time to focus on reading the posts that come in through my RSS reader. Twitter is great for serendipitous finds and quick conversations, but it has a kind of fracturing effect on attention span. I think they fill different needs - both are valuable, in their own place.
  • I am TOO easily distracted by the rabbit warren that comes from twitter. I like the focus that visiting my google reader brings and the fact that I can get a snippet of what the post is about to determine if I am going to read. Don't get me wrong, I have found GREAT information on Twitter but it is more gee whiz stuff than targeted to what I am working on at the time!
  • The twitter steam can move too fast and I find it easy to miss stuff, the reader is more a pull technology whereas twitter is push and often pushed too fast to see everything
  • I learned the same thing fairly quickly. Heck, I only follow about 400 folks, and I still miss so much content. I can't miss out on my Google Reader!
  • Yes, you can get lots of good link suggestions from your Twitter Stream, but it's a big mess of stream of consciousness links. There are some advantages to using Google Reader, such as the ability to organize your feeds into categories. Another advantage is searchability. I can search my feeds only for keywords.
  • NO. Twitter cannot replace RSS feed reader. And I cannot follow 2000 people and read, click ununderstandable links (without description). NO a BIG NO.
  • The issue with RSS is not that twitter is killing it. It was dead on arrival. Dead as far as being used by the general public or those who are blogging and not full time bloggers or "pro-bloggers". As professional bloggers, those who do blog consulting and coaching, or design and build blogs, we have failed. We have failed to truly do a good job educating the public and even our clients on just how powerful RSS is. We are failing to get them to "get it" and to understand what RSS could do for them.

    Its not that twitter killed it. It was dead way before twitter arrived on the internet. And I agree, I have tried not to use a RSS reader and I simply can't function without having my selected subscriptions sent to me in one location. And for those of us who fall in that category of "pro-bloggers" RSS will always be a necessary evil.

    So what do we do? We have to keep preaching the merits of RSS to our clients and other "non-pro-bloggers". And we have to keep writing about it and promoting it on other social media outlets.

    Great post as always Michael. You always seem to know what to write and when to write it.
  • See, I disagree. I used Google Reader long before I became a blogger. I've read blogs for years, but only started seriously blogging in the last 2 years. I couldn't keep up with all the blogs I follow if it weren't for RSS. I'm constantly preaching the joys of RSS feed to everyone I know. Bloggers that don't have their RSS feed easily linked get serious lectures from me. Feed broken? Sorry, I can't read you blog. Not enough hours in the day.
  • Lucia Pinizotti
    I would imagine that once you've learned to fly, you might not enjoy the experience of flying half as much if someone else where flying the plane for you. In the same way, I like piloting myself through the stream of information that comes through my Reader, rather than take a back seat to someone else's opinion about what might be important to me. And, as others here have pointed out, not all the bloggers I follow tweet their own horn. I won't be getting rid of my Google Reader any time soon. But, then again, as a dyed in the wool input junkie, I'm not likely to give up reading books as a substitute for blogs either.
  • I have definitely used Twitter to "Supplement" my RSS Reader (Google Reader). However, it is most definitely not a replacement. The amount of structure, process, and organization that I gain is way to powerful to give up. Plus, the extensibility of GR is amazing. I read 200+ feeds which is about 1,000+ articles per day. Tag stuff, send it to Delicious, Email it, Schedule it as a task, save a note with it. All very quickly and elegantly.
    I love Twitter, but It can't do that and I hope it never does.
  • Its funny you'd mention this because I just went back to my Google Reader last week after ignoring it for a few months. I just didn't have time to keep up with everything and going through all of my feeds was easily dropped from the priority list. But I realized I was missing out on stuff so I just went in and marked everything as "read", unsubscribed to about half of the feeds, and now its back to a manageable level.
  • Not a chance I'm giving up my RSS feeds. Twitter is nice for many things, but it does not even come close to replacing RSS.
  • I couldn't do without my RSS reader to keep up with blogs I'm subscribed to, even though many of the blogs I follow are on Twitter too. Like you, not all of them tweet or promote their blog posts, so I'd miss out on lots of great stuff.

    Twitter killing RSS? Not as far as I'm concerned.

    Tweetdeck helps a lot to keep up with new posts on blogs, but there's still a lot I miss throughout the day/night because of people living in different timezones than I do. Thank goodness for RSS.
  • Oh (sorry) - one more though. I've been using Seesmic to create columns based on keywords, not users (Tweetdeck offers the same functionality). This allows me to catch new and useful articles that I would have missed if I focused only on Twitter users.
  • I've had the same experience. My "must read" blogs I get via email (I'm old fashion that way). And I still use Google Reader and MyAlltop.

    Someone told me about Netvibes yesterday so I'm going to see if that offers something to help manage the stream.
  • Agreed. If you need stuff stored for reference instead of what's RIGHT NOW, Twitter doesn't cut it.
  • I could not live without my google reader. I know I would miss a lot of good reading if I relied solely on twitter (or even facebook).

    I do find new and different blogs and content to add to GR from twitter that I might not have been exposed otherwise.
  • Did you try importing your "inner sanctum" feeds into Google Reader, where you can search them and isolate them?

    What about using the search-twitter functions to pare down the feeds, for instance, to only pull the ones with links?

    I agree, I can't do without my feeds, but it has impacted how often I feel compelled to check them.
  • I haven't given up on RSS, but I have culled a lot of (niche) blogs I'm no longer interested in from my reader, which has helped considerably. It's also allowed me to subscribe to other feeds that interest me more.

    One thing I have found, though, is that people who do see my "post-tweets" tend to comment via Twitter. (I'm assuming many of these people, for one reason or another, read my feed rather than my blog--due to its former all-gaming orientation, it's blocked at work for many people.)

    So in that sense, Twitter isn't hurting RSS; instead, it may be hurting my ability to engender discussion of the topics I cover.
  • For me, Twitter never came close to replacing my RSS feeds. Except for my digg.com feed - stuff that I find interesting generally turns up first on Twitter and then on digg, so I am thinking of removing my digg feed (which for me is essentially the same as never visiting digg again)
  • I've had the exact same experience. I figured I was double dipping and spending enough time on Twitter and that I would pick up those posts. Turns out, I didn't. I haven't been in my reader in about three weeks and I'm scared to go back. : > )
  • I've noticed that the online community loves to proclaim the death of this or that - usually prematurely. I'm of the opinion that when something truly dies, we won't need a whole lot of commentary telling us that it's dead - it'll just be an obvious fact.

    I personally love my RSS reader; I like being able to read posts and get information on my own schedule and not be forced to constantly watch my Twitter stream. Don't get me wrong, Twitter is a fantastic communication channel, but it doesn't replace RSS.
  • Excellent point; I think some of these "Is so-and-so dead?" articles are attempts at being self-fulfilling prophecies.
  • Adding a tweet is like putting a leaf on a fast moving river - too quickly it is lost in the distance. You only notice things on Twitter when you are paying attention. This makes Twitter a bad tool for seriously following blogs you want to read.
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