Published by Robert Scoble
I give you a front-row seat on the future. Focusing most of my efforts now on next-generation augmented reality and artificial intelligence, AKA "mixed reality."
SUBSCRIBE TO MY NEWSLETTER: http://clevermoe.com/scobleizer-news/
BUY OUR NEW BOOK: https://www.amazon.com/Fourth-Transformation-Robert-Scoble/dp/1539894444 "The Fourth Transformation: How augmented reality and artificial intelligence will change everything."
WATCH MY LATEST SPEECHES:
State of VR with Philip Rosedale (done in VR itself, very cool): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zAA1EVGUZU
At GEOINT, June 2017: http://trajectorymagazine.com/glimpse-new-world/
Augmented World Expo, June 2017: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4xHILvLD8E
At Leade.rs, April 2017: https://youtu.be/52_0JshgjXI
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BIO:
Scoble gives you a front-row seat on the future.
Literally. He had the first ride in the first Tesla. Siri was launched in his house. He's been the first to share all sorts of technologies and companies with you, from Flipboard to Pandora to Instagram.
Today he's focusing on mixed reality, AKA "next-generation augmented reality" which will include a new user interface for EVERYTHING in your life (IoT, Smart Cities, driverless cars, robots, drones, etc).
That's based on his view thanks to his past experience as futurist at Rackspace.
Best place to find Scoble? On his Facebook profile at https://www.facebook.com/RobertScoble
He has been a technology blogger since 2000, was one of five people who built Microsoft's Channel 9 video blog/community, worked at Fast Company Magazine running its TV efforts, and has been part of technology media businesses since 1993.
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SPEAKER PITCH:
Apple and Facebook now have revealed their Augmented Reality strategies, which means your business needs one too. Rely on Robert Scoble, the world's top authority on AR, to bring to your conference what businesses should do next.
SPEECH ABSTRACT #1:
TITLE: The Fourth Transformation: What's next in mixed reality (AR and AI) and the future of technology?
Here's an example of this talk at Leade.rs in Paris in April, 2017: https://youtu.be/52_0JshgjXI
Why "the Fourth Transformation?"
Soon we will have phones and glasses that do full on augmented reality. Everything you look at will potentially be augmented. This world is coming in late 2017 with a new iPhone from Apple, amongst other products. Microsoft is betting everything on its HoloLens glasses that do mixed reality and the industry is spending many billions of dollars in R&D and funding new companies like Magic Leap.
This future will be the user interface for IoT, Smart Cities, autonomous cars, robots, drones, and your TV.
This is a big deal and Robert will take you through what mixed reality is and how it will change every business.
Learn more about Robert's speaking style and contact his agent at http://odemanagement.com/robert-scoble/Robert-Scoble.html
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SPEECH ABSTRACT #2:
"The Next Two Clicks of Moore's Law."
Over the next four years, or two clicks of Moore's Law, a ton about our technology world will change. Scoble will bring you the best from his travels visiting R&D labs, startups, and innovators around the world.
He views the world through his rose-colored-mixed-reality glasses, which will be the new user interface for self driving cars, Smart Cities, IoT, and many other things in our world.
He'll send you off with some lessons for companies both large and small.
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SPEECH ABSTRACT #3:
"Personalized Meaning: What is Augmented Reality For?"
As we enter a far more technological world where even cars drive themselves, I predict we'll see a blowback toward the analog, more authentic world.
What role does augmented reality play in both worlds?
Get Scoble's insight into where augmented reality is going, see tons of real-world demos, and understand what he means by 'personalized meaning.'
CONTACT:
If you are looking to contact me, email is best: scobleizer@gmail.com.
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ENDORSEMENTS:
IZEA Top 25 Tech Influencers: https://izea.com/2017/07/07/25-top-tech-influencers/
Time: One of the top 140 Twitterers!
FT: One of the five most influential Twitterers!
Inc. Top 5 on list of Tech Power Players You Need to Know: http://www.inc.com/john-rampton/30-power-players-in-tech-you-need-to-know.html
Next Reality: #4 on top 50 AR influencer list: https://next.reality.news/news/nr50-next-realitys-50-people-watch-augmented-mixed-reality-0177454/
View all posts by Robert Scoble
Scoble, Zeldman has a text link in his sidebar. The text link at the bottom of the page is for validating his RSS, CSS, etc. When one clicks on “RSS Feeds” Zeldman gives a short page explaining what it is and how to use it.
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Scoble, Zeldman has a text link in his sidebar. The text link at the bottom of the page is for validating his RSS, CSS, etc. When one clicks on “RSS Feeds” Zeldman gives a short page explaining what it is and how to use it.
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Scoble, Zeldman has a text link in his sidebar. The text link at the bottom of the page is for validating his RSS, CSS, etc. When one clicks on “RSS Feeds” Zeldman gives a short page explaining what it is and how to use it.
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Apple’s Safari automatically detects if there is RSS links on your page and posts an RSS icon in the url bar.
Doesn’t this seem like the logical place for RSS annoucement?!?! Even with a friendly orange icon on the webpage, you still have to search for it.
Plus, the web browser is already decoding every line of html, etc. So, why not just have the browser detect it?!?!
I imagine that a problem exists when multiple RSS feed links appear on the same page; however, I doubt this is very common — it hasn’t been for me, in fact, I have never had a problem and a subscribe to way-too-many blog feeds.
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Apple’s Safari automatically detects if there is RSS links on your page and posts an RSS icon in the url bar.
Doesn’t this seem like the logical place for RSS annoucement?!?! Even with a friendly orange icon on the webpage, you still have to search for it.
Plus, the web browser is already decoding every line of html, etc. So, why not just have the browser detect it?!?!
I imagine that a problem exists when multiple RSS feed links appear on the same page; however, I doubt this is very common — it hasn’t been for me, in fact, I have never had a problem and a subscribe to way-too-many blog feeds.
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Apple’s Safari automatically detects if there is RSS links on your page and posts an RSS icon in the url bar.
Doesn’t this seem like the logical place for RSS annoucement?!?! Even with a friendly orange icon on the webpage, you still have to search for it.
Plus, the web browser is already decoding every line of html, etc. So, why not just have the browser detect it?!?!
I imagine that a problem exists when multiple RSS feed links appear on the same page; however, I doubt this is very common — it hasn’t been for me, in fact, I have never had a problem and a subscribe to way-too-many blog feeds.
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This is already a solved problem. Within the next year or so, every modern web browser will have feed autodiscovery and this will be a moot discussion.
At best you’re suggesting stopgap solutions which will likely be irrelvant when IE 7 ships.
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This is already a solved problem. Within the next year or so, every modern web browser will have feed autodiscovery and this will be a moot discussion.
At best you’re suggesting stopgap solutions which will likely be irrelvant when IE 7 ships.
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This is already a solved problem. Within the next year or so, every modern web browser will have feed autodiscovery and this will be a moot discussion.
At best you’re suggesting stopgap solutions which will likely be irrelvant when IE 7 ships.
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Most RSS readers will locate the feed if you just provide them with the blog’s URL. (at least if the blog system is clever enough to provide an “alternate” link tag with the “type” attribute set to “application/rss+xml”)
The icon style isn’t really a problem, but there is another problem related to the feed. Maybe hard to believe, but not every visitor knows what RSS is. If such a user clicks the feed link, he will get the raw XML in his face. Not exactly user friendly. The feed should have a corresponding XML stylesheet providing a user-friendly page when the visitor clicks the feed link. It works with any decent browser and could display a brief tutorial on RSS and feed readers. Some blog systems provides this automagically, so does some third-party tools like Feedburner.
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Most RSS readers will locate the feed if you just provide them with the blog’s URL. (at least if the blog system is clever enough to provide an “alternate” link tag with the “type” attribute set to “application/rss+xml”)
The icon style isn’t really a problem, but there is another problem related to the feed. Maybe hard to believe, but not every visitor knows what RSS is. If such a user clicks the feed link, he will get the raw XML in his face. Not exactly user friendly. The feed should have a corresponding XML stylesheet providing a user-friendly page when the visitor clicks the feed link. It works with any decent browser and could display a brief tutorial on RSS and feed readers. Some blog systems provides this automagically, so does some third-party tools like Feedburner.
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Most RSS readers will locate the feed if you just provide them with the blog’s URL. (at least if the blog system is clever enough to provide an “alternate” link tag with the “type” attribute set to “application/rss+xml”)
The icon style isn’t really a problem, but there is another problem related to the feed. Maybe hard to believe, but not every visitor knows what RSS is. If such a user clicks the feed link, he will get the raw XML in his face. Not exactly user friendly. The feed should have a corresponding XML stylesheet providing a user-friendly page when the visitor clicks the feed link. It works with any decent browser and could display a brief tutorial on RSS and feed readers. Some blog systems provides this automagically, so does some third-party tools like Feedburner.
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Safari sniffs out the rss on the home page and displays it in blue rectangle on the address line at the far right. Then just clicking on that blue rss rectangle the rss is automatically placed in the default rss reader in this case for me its called Newsfire. Then a simple return adds that feed to my reader. Just that simple. Click and return. Done!
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Safari sniffs out the rss on the home page and displays it in blue rectangle on the address line at the far right. Then just clicking on that blue rss rectangle the rss is automatically placed in the default rss reader in this case for me its called Newsfire. Then a simple return adds that feed to my reader. Just that simple. Click and return. Done!
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Safari sniffs out the rss on the home page and displays it in blue rectangle on the address line at the far right. Then just clicking on that blue rss rectangle the rss is automatically placed in the default rss reader in this case for me its called Newsfire. Then a simple return adds that feed to my reader. Just that simple. Click and return. Done!
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If you are using an aggregator, you can almost certainly just ask it to subscribe to the main blog page – in which case it will do an auto-discovery and either subscribe or offer choices.
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If you are using an aggregator, you can almost certainly just ask it to subscribe to the main blog page – in which case it will do an auto-discovery and either subscribe or offer choices.
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If you are using an aggregator, you can almost certainly just ask it to subscribe to the main blog page – in which case it will do an auto-discovery and either subscribe or offer choices.
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use bloglines and livelines extension. preview feed if you are not sure.
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use bloglines and livelines extension. preview feed if you are not sure.
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use bloglines and livelines extension. preview feed if you are not sure.
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I don’t know why the icons are needed, with IE7 having a built in RSS auto discovery built in, what is the point?
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I don’t know why the icons are needed, with IE7 having a built in RSS auto discovery built in, what is the point?
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I don’t know why the icons are needed, with IE7 having a built in RSS auto discovery built in, what is the point?
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I have all the logos on my blog. Why? Because the vast majority of those that use RSS don’t event know it. I use the generic XML logo for the RSS feed plus the ‘My MSN’ and ‘MY Yahoo’ icons for the vast majority of RSS subscribers that see the syndicated world as a ‘my’ application.
This is a problem though and NOT solved as some suggest: saying IE7 will fix it is not the solution.
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I have all the logos on my blog. Why? Because the vast majority of those that use RSS don’t event know it. I use the generic XML logo for the RSS feed plus the ‘My MSN’ and ‘MY Yahoo’ icons for the vast majority of RSS subscribers that see the syndicated world as a ‘my’ application.
This is a problem though and NOT solved as some suggest: saying IE7 will fix it is not the solution.
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I have all the logos on my blog. Why? Because the vast majority of those that use RSS don’t event know it. I use the generic XML logo for the RSS feed plus the ‘My MSN’ and ‘MY Yahoo’ icons for the vast majority of RSS subscribers that see the syndicated world as a ‘my’ application.
This is a problem though and NOT solved as some suggest: saying IE7 will fix it is not the solution.
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The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) [Oz version of the BBC) does this quite well aswell. Here is there page describing what the XML icons etc mean: http://www.abc.net.au/news/services/default.htm .
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The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) [Oz version of the BBC) does this quite well aswell. Here is there page describing what the XML icons etc mean: http://www.abc.net.au/news/services/default.htm .
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The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) [Oz version of the BBC) does this quite well aswell. Here is there page describing what the XML icons etc mean: http://www.abc.net.au/news/services/default.htm .
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Safari has the best solution yet with the auto-detection. Nice to see IE7 picking up on that. And by picking up, I mean copying the interface completely. Firefox and Opera should follow suit. It really is quite intuitive.
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Safari has the best solution yet with the auto-detection. Nice to see IE7 picking up on that. And by picking up, I mean copying the interface completely. Firefox and Opera should follow suit. It really is quite intuitive.
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Safari has the best solution yet with the auto-detection. Nice to see IE7 picking up on that. And by picking up, I mean copying the interface completely. Firefox and Opera should follow suit. It really is quite intuitive.
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The orange XML icon is outmoded and makes no sense. I’ve debated this with Dave W. over e-mail and he’s just plain wrong on this one.
The orange XML icon doesn’t work for the following reasons:
1. Users shouldn’t need to know what XML is- many of them will never understand that.
2. The icon won’t make sense in many locales (don’t cite the Chinese People’s Daily- very lame example).
3. Since the orange XML icon doesn’t actually help the user subscribe, it is at best an incomplete solution.
I like Dare’s solution for having each “one-click” subscription option on his page. We need to have one-click subscriptions working consistently and a better way than the orange icon to identify where to click. If we do that, then we’ll have something useful.
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The orange XML icon is outmoded and makes no sense. I’ve debated this with Dave W. over e-mail and he’s just plain wrong on this one.
The orange XML icon doesn’t work for the following reasons:
1. Users shouldn’t need to know what XML is- many of them will never understand that.
2. The icon won’t make sense in many locales (don’t cite the Chinese People’s Daily- very lame example).
3. Since the orange XML icon doesn’t actually help the user subscribe, it is at best an incomplete solution.
I like Dare’s solution for having each “one-click” subscription option on his page. We need to have one-click subscriptions working consistently and a better way than the orange icon to identify where to click. If we do that, then we’ll have something useful.
LikeLike
The orange XML icon is outmoded and makes no sense. I’ve debated this with Dave W. over e-mail and he’s just plain wrong on this one.
The orange XML icon doesn’t work for the following reasons:
1. Users shouldn’t need to know what XML is- many of them will never understand that.
2. The icon won’t make sense in many locales (don’t cite the Chinese People’s Daily- very lame example).
3. Since the orange XML icon doesn’t actually help the user subscribe, it is at best an incomplete solution.
I like Dare’s solution for having each “one-click” subscription option on his page. We need to have one-click subscriptions working consistently and a better way than the orange icon to identify where to click. If we do that, then we’ll have something useful.
LikeLike
I think the underlying point is getting lost here and we’re nitpicking about feed icons again (how many times have we had this discussion?). The point of this post is that RSS usability sucks. It’s not just feed discovery, which as Dare points out is going to become, if it’s not already, a moot point (although I’m curious to see how the autodiscovery things deal with multiple RSS links on a page, javascript links, and other idiosyncrasies). What about trackbacks, viewing/posting comments from an aggregator, unified identity, blogs with only partial content in the description tag (*cough* SCOBLE *cough*), spam, archive naviagation, searching. We can rave about our various browsers autodiscovery, or our aggregators cool features, or our nifty orange feed icons until the cows come home. But on the whole, RSS usability *still sucks*! So what are we gonna do about it? Wait for Microsoft to proprietize it? Cause that’s why big companies proprietize things, because the community agreed upon standards suck (and if the standard itself doesn’t suck, then the documentation does).
Don’t get me wrong, I like RSS/ATOM/syndycation/community standards, I’m just making a point.
-Paul
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I think the underlying point is getting lost here and we’re nitpicking about feed icons again (how many times have we had this discussion?). The point of this post is that RSS usability sucks. It’s not just feed discovery, which as Dare points out is going to become, if it’s not already, a moot point (although I’m curious to see how the autodiscovery things deal with multiple RSS links on a page, javascript links, and other idiosyncrasies). What about trackbacks, viewing/posting comments from an aggregator, unified identity, blogs with only partial content in the description tag (*cough* SCOBLE *cough*), spam, archive naviagation, searching. We can rave about our various browsers autodiscovery, or our aggregators cool features, or our nifty orange feed icons until the cows come home. But on the whole, RSS usability *still sucks*! So what are we gonna do about it? Wait for Microsoft to proprietize it? Cause that’s why big companies proprietize things, because the community agreed upon standards suck (and if the standard itself doesn’t suck, then the documentation does).
Don’t get me wrong, I like RSS/ATOM/syndycation/community standards, I’m just making a point.
-Paul
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I think the underlying point is getting lost here and we’re nitpicking about feed icons again (how many times have we had this discussion?). The point of this post is that RSS usability sucks. It’s not just feed discovery, which as Dare points out is going to become, if it’s not already, a moot point (although I’m curious to see how the autodiscovery things deal with multiple RSS links on a page, javascript links, and other idiosyncrasies). What about trackbacks, viewing/posting comments from an aggregator, unified identity, blogs with only partial content in the description tag (*cough* SCOBLE *cough*), spam, archive naviagation, searching. We can rave about our various browsers autodiscovery, or our aggregators cool features, or our nifty orange feed icons until the cows come home. But on the whole, RSS usability *still sucks*! So what are we gonna do about it? Wait for Microsoft to proprietize it? Cause that’s why big companies proprietize things, because the community agreed upon standards suck (and if the standard itself doesn’t suck, then the documentation does).
Don’t get me wrong, I like RSS/ATOM/syndycation/community standards, I’m just making a point.
-Paul
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This is kind of confusing, considering your opinion on the IE rss icon proposals a few weeks ago…
I definitely agree though, RSS could use a usability boost, but I don’t think that icons, in whatever shape or form are going to solve it.
The way I see it, it takes quite a bit for people to see the benefits of rss. Rss aggregators are too fragmented at this point. I wonder what it will take to make rss apple simple. Maybe some ‘love’ from MS.
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This is kind of confusing, considering your opinion on the IE rss icon proposals a few weeks ago…
I definitely agree though, RSS could use a usability boost, but I don’t think that icons, in whatever shape or form are going to solve it.
The way I see it, it takes quite a bit for people to see the benefits of rss. Rss aggregators are too fragmented at this point. I wonder what it will take to make rss apple simple. Maybe some ‘love’ from MS.
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This is kind of confusing, considering your opinion on the IE rss icon proposals a few weeks ago…
I definitely agree though, RSS could use a usability boost, but I don’t think that icons, in whatever shape or form are going to solve it.
The way I see it, it takes quite a bit for people to see the benefits of rss. Rss aggregators are too fragmented at this point. I wonder what it will take to make rss apple simple. Maybe some ‘love’ from MS.
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I disagree with the use of the orange XML button. I think letters XML should be replaced with a more general “Subscribe”. That button should take you to page with all of the sites subscriptions options(email, rss), as well as XML buttons with a description of RSS/XML feeds and a suggested preferred method to read them(google reader or bloglines, on my site). If you want, offer a simple link on the front page, right next to the Subscribe button that links powerusers automatically to the XML link.
The only problem with this method is that it takes a lot of effort that most web projects aren’t likely to be willing to go through.
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I disagree with the use of the orange XML button. I think letters XML should be replaced with a more general “Subscribe”. That button should take you to page with all of the sites subscriptions options(email, rss), as well as XML buttons with a description of RSS/XML feeds and a suggested preferred method to read them(google reader or bloglines, on my site). If you want, offer a simple link on the front page, right next to the Subscribe button that links powerusers automatically to the XML link.
The only problem with this method is that it takes a lot of effort that most web projects aren’t likely to be willing to go through.
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I disagree with the use of the orange XML button. I think letters XML should be replaced with a more general “Subscribe”. That button should take you to page with all of the sites subscriptions options(email, rss), as well as XML buttons with a description of RSS/XML feeds and a suggested preferred method to read them(google reader or bloglines, on my site). If you want, offer a simple link on the front page, right next to the Subscribe button that links powerusers automatically to the XML link.
The only problem with this method is that it takes a lot of effort that most web projects aren’t likely to be willing to go through.
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To Dare Obasanjo, Stefan, Tetra et al,
Yes, most browsers and readers will have auto-discovery built in, but that’s not all RSS feeds are used for. What if you want to add the feed to Google Reader or netvibes? The point of having an easy-to-find icon or link is that you have a direct way to pick out the link without the need for special software.
As for Zeldman’s site, yeah there is a link in the sidebar, but I couldn’t find it for ages, and the fact that Robert couldn’t find it either is an example of exactly why we need the easy-to-find icon.
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To Dare Obasanjo, Stefan, Tetra et al,
Yes, most browsers and readers will have auto-discovery built in, but that’s not all RSS feeds are used for. What if you want to add the feed to Google Reader or netvibes? The point of having an easy-to-find icon or link is that you have a direct way to pick out the link without the need for special software.
As for Zeldman’s site, yeah there is a link in the sidebar, but I couldn’t find it for ages, and the fact that Robert couldn’t find it either is an example of exactly why we need the easy-to-find icon.
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To Dare Obasanjo, Stefan, Tetra et al,
Yes, most browsers and readers will have auto-discovery built in, but that’s not all RSS feeds are used for. What if you want to add the feed to Google Reader or netvibes? The point of having an easy-to-find icon or link is that you have a direct way to pick out the link without the need for special software.
As for Zeldman’s site, yeah there is a link in the sidebar, but I couldn’t find it for ages, and the fact that Robert couldn’t find it either is an example of exactly why we need the easy-to-find icon.
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Could we stop talking about “RSS” or “XML” and speak in terms that normal people can be expected to understand?
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Could we stop talking about “RSS” or “XML” and speak in terms that normal people can be expected to understand?
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Could we stop talking about “RSS” or “XML” and speak in terms that normal people can be expected to understand?
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Scoble, I took a look at Molly’s blog and yours and I’ve gotta to say that it’s much easier to subscribe to her’s than yours.
http://www.kbcafe.com/rss/?guid=20051030180645
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Scoble, I took a look at Molly’s blog and yours and I’ve gotta to say that it’s much easier to subscribe to her’s than yours.
http://www.kbcafe.com/rss/?guid=20051030180645
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Scoble, I took a look at Molly’s blog and yours and I’ve gotta to say that it’s much easier to subscribe to her’s than yours.
http://www.kbcafe.com/rss/?guid=20051030180645
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Maybe a button with the word FEED will do. π
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Maybe a button with the word FEED will do. π
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Maybe a button with the word FEED will do. π
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Jeremy: do you call your DVD player a “device that plays movies on physical round-disk-shaped media?” Why not?
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Jeremy: do you call your DVD player a “device that plays movies on physical round-disk-shaped media?” Why not?
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Jeremy: do you call your DVD player a “device that plays movies on physical round-disk-shaped media?” Why not?
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Randy: I wasn’t complaining about Molly’s blog. We were on another blog site when we got stuck while demonstrating RSS at the Blog Business Summit. Sorry for not making that clear.
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Randy: I wasn’t complaining about Molly’s blog. We were on another blog site when we got stuck while demonstrating RSS at the Blog Business Summit. Sorry for not making that clear.
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Randy: I wasn’t complaining about Molly’s blog. We were on another blog site when we got stuck while demonstrating RSS at the Blog Business Summit. Sorry for not making that clear.
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A VCR isn’t a “VHS player” is it? Is your “web browser” actually a “HTML navigator” or a “HTTP communicator”?
See, you cam come up with examples that do and don’t suport your point. But why must we make the acronym stew even thicker? Where will this insanity stop?
This ia about subscribeing to web sites. Period. Plain and simple.
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A VCR isn’t a “VHS player” is it? Is your “web browser” actually a “HTML navigator” or a “HTTP communicator”?
See, you cam come up with examples that do and don’t suport your point. But why must we make the acronym stew even thicker? Where will this insanity stop?
This ia about subscribeing to web sites. Period. Plain and simple.
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A VCR isn’t a “VHS player” is it? Is your “web browser” actually a “HTML navigator” or a “HTTP communicator”?
See, you cam come up with examples that do and don’t suport your point. But why must we make the acronym stew even thicker? Where will this insanity stop?
This ia about subscribeing to web sites. Period. Plain and simple.
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I think the biggest usability issue with RSS feeds ins’t “how do I figure out the URL”, but “what do I do with the URL”. Clicking on the link – which is what my mom would do – doesn’t work. At best you get a page of XML, which looks like junk to my Mom.
The best thing right now is that most readers will “auto discover” the feed URL, given the website URL. So you can drag the URL from the browser location field into the reader’s location field, and poof, you’re subscribed. That works with SharpReader most of the time.
However the better thing would be if clicking on the link accomplished this. The MIME type of an RSS feed should cause the browser to launch your RSS reader. Or maybe we need a different transport indicator, like rss://domain/url instead of http://domain/url, so that the browser knows what to do when a feed link is clicked.
I totally agree that the usability of feed discover and subscription is a big reason why RSS feeds are not used widely by more people.
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I think the biggest usability issue with RSS feeds ins’t “how do I figure out the URL”, but “what do I do with the URL”. Clicking on the link – which is what my mom would do – doesn’t work. At best you get a page of XML, which looks like junk to my Mom.
The best thing right now is that most readers will “auto discover” the feed URL, given the website URL. So you can drag the URL from the browser location field into the reader’s location field, and poof, you’re subscribed. That works with SharpReader most of the time.
However the better thing would be if clicking on the link accomplished this. The MIME type of an RSS feed should cause the browser to launch your RSS reader. Or maybe we need a different transport indicator, like rss://domain/url instead of http://domain/url, so that the browser knows what to do when a feed link is clicked.
I totally agree that the usability of feed discover and subscription is a big reason why RSS feeds are not used widely by more people.
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I think the biggest usability issue with RSS feeds ins’t “how do I figure out the URL”, but “what do I do with the URL”. Clicking on the link – which is what my mom would do – doesn’t work. At best you get a page of XML, which looks like junk to my Mom.
The best thing right now is that most readers will “auto discover” the feed URL, given the website URL. So you can drag the URL from the browser location field into the reader’s location field, and poof, you’re subscribed. That works with SharpReader most of the time.
However the better thing would be if clicking on the link accomplished this. The MIME type of an RSS feed should cause the browser to launch your RSS reader. Or maybe we need a different transport indicator, like rss://domain/url instead of http://domain/url, so that the browser knows what to do when a feed link is clicked.
I totally agree that the usability of feed discover and subscription is a big reason why RSS feeds are not used widely by more people.
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Robert we had a great discussion on my site a few weeks ago following Dave Winer’s suggestion of a Subscribe button.
What we came up with is an orange Subscribe and a Help button alongside it – I think it works quite well. Have a look at the buttons in this post – they are free to copy, as is the help text.
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Robert we had a great discussion on my site a few weeks ago following Dave Winer’s suggestion of a Subscribe button.
What we came up with is an orange Subscribe and a Help button alongside it – I think it works quite well. Have a look at the buttons in this post – they are free to copy, as is the help text.
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Robert we had a great discussion on my site a few weeks ago following Dave Winer’s suggestion of a Subscribe button.
What we came up with is an orange Subscribe and a Help button alongside it – I think it works quite well. Have a look at the buttons in this post – they are free to copy, as is the help text.
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Robert: Ideally, there wouldn’t be an RSS icon or link of any kind on a page… feeds should be found via autodiscovery, and presented to the user on request.
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Robert: Ideally, there wouldn’t be an RSS icon or link of any kind on a page… feeds should be found via autodiscovery, and presented to the user on request.
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Developing a standard for RSS is crucial. Preferably a solution which allowed people to click on an RSS feed button (whatever it says on it) which would automatically add it to that users list of feeds which would in turn be used by any/all aggregators that user employs.
But for now RSS usability definitely sucks. I looked into it quite recently, knowing nothing about it, but wanting to provide my users with the best possible solution. I found that IMHO there are four steps to providing somewhat usable RSS feeds:
1. Use a (white on orange) ‘SUBSCRIBE’ button.
2. Include a help button & help page.
3. Include a link to your feed in the head of your html (for autodiscovery).
4. Style your feed.
Of course how you implement these four steps will also determine how user friendly it ends up.
Anyone know offhand can blogger users style their own feeds without using feedburner or another third party solution?
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Developing a standard for RSS is crucial. Preferably a solution which allowed people to click on an RSS feed button (whatever it says on it) which would automatically add it to that users list of feeds which would in turn be used by any/all aggregators that user employs.
But for now RSS usability definitely sucks. I looked into it quite recently, knowing nothing about it, but wanting to provide my users with the best possible solution. I found that IMHO there are four steps to providing somewhat usable RSS feeds:
1. Use a (white on orange) ‘SUBSCRIBE’ button.
2. Include a help button & help page.
3. Include a link to your feed in the head of your html (for autodiscovery).
4. Style your feed.
Of course how you implement these four steps will also determine how user friendly it ends up.
Anyone know offhand can blogger users style their own feeds without using feedburner or another third party solution?
LikeLike
Developing a standard for RSS is crucial. Preferably a solution which allowed people to click on an RSS feed button (whatever it says on it) which would automatically add it to that users list of feeds which would in turn be used by any/all aggregators that user employs.
But for now RSS usability definitely sucks. I looked into it quite recently, knowing nothing about it, but wanting to provide my users with the best possible solution. I found that IMHO there are four steps to providing somewhat usable RSS feeds:
1. Use a (white on orange) ‘SUBSCRIBE’ button.
2. Include a help button & help page.
3. Include a link to your feed in the head of your html (for autodiscovery).
4. Style your feed.
Of course how you implement these four steps will also determine how user friendly it ends up.
Anyone know offhand can blogger users style their own feeds without using feedburner or another third party solution?
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Robert,
I know your Mom is your top priority right now, as it should be. It’s got to be very difficult and I extend my sympathies to you and your family.
The issue of RSS usability is indeed a big one. I’ve researched it for months and have just finished development of feedpass.com, a new tool for RSS publishers, bloggers, etc. that simplifies much of the usability issue. It’s essentially a landing page for RSS feeds, allowing content owners to use a single button that gives readers an array of choices for subscription and walks them through the process with ease. It doesn’t modify the feed in any way, so it’s compatible with Feedburner and all other feed management tools.
In addition, the site creates a monetization program that benefits both content publishers and anyone who wants to create a feedpass page link to the feed. In fact, the content owner can earn money from every person that links to his feed with a feedpass. It’s very cool.
If you get a chance, I’d love your opinion on it.
Jim
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Robert,
I know your Mom is your top priority right now, as it should be. It’s got to be very difficult and I extend my sympathies to you and your family.
The issue of RSS usability is indeed a big one. I’ve researched it for months and have just finished development of feedpass.com, a new tool for RSS publishers, bloggers, etc. that simplifies much of the usability issue. It’s essentially a landing page for RSS feeds, allowing content owners to use a single button that gives readers an array of choices for subscription and walks them through the process with ease. It doesn’t modify the feed in any way, so it’s compatible with Feedburner and all other feed management tools.
In addition, the site creates a monetization program that benefits both content publishers and anyone who wants to create a feedpass page link to the feed. In fact, the content owner can earn money from every person that links to his feed with a feedpass. It’s very cool.
If you get a chance, I’d love your opinion on it.
Jim
LikeLike
Robert,
I know your Mom is your top priority right now, as it should be. It’s got to be very difficult and I extend my sympathies to you and your family.
The issue of RSS usability is indeed a big one. I’ve researched it for months and have just finished development of feedpass.com, a new tool for RSS publishers, bloggers, etc. that simplifies much of the usability issue. It’s essentially a landing page for RSS feeds, allowing content owners to use a single button that gives readers an array of choices for subscription and walks them through the process with ease. It doesn’t modify the feed in any way, so it’s compatible with Feedburner and all other feed management tools.
In addition, the site creates a monetization program that benefits both content publishers and anyone who wants to create a feedpass page link to the feed. In fact, the content owner can earn money from every person that links to his feed with a feedpass. It’s very cool.
If you get a chance, I’d love your opinion on it.
Jim
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