Blogging, RSS and the Information Landscape: A Look At Online News Kathy Gill University of Washington 10 May 2005 WWW2005 Chiba, Japan

Overview  Question: how have online news sites adopted RSS technology  Organization of Talk:  Review RSS Technology, Timeline  Review Diffusion Theory  Examine Blog, RSS Growth  Daily Newspaper Study

RSS  Rich Site Summary, Really Simple Syndication, RDF Site Summary  XML document that facilitates content syndication  This “feed” contains structured data  Transformed to information by RSS reader  Ease of syndication, low cost

RSS Development Timeline March 1999NetscapeRSS 0.90 July 1999NetscapeRSS 0.91 June 2000UserlandRSS 0.91 Late 2002RSS-Dev Working Group RSS 1.0 January 2003UserlandRSS 2.0.1

RSS 2.0 Spec “Having a settled spec is something RSS has needed for a long time. The purpose of this work is to help it become a unchanging thing, to foster growth in the market that is developing around it, and to clear the path for innovation in new syndication formats.”

RSS Readers  With RSS 2.0 spec, developers were no longer shooting at moving target  Example:  Pluck launched in 2003, turns MSIE into a reader Privately funded by two firms capitalized at $4+ billion cNet editor’s choice in July 2004 Public funding of $8.5 million Oct 2004

RSS Diffusion  Rogers: an innovation is “an idea practice, or object that is perceived as new by an individual or other unit of adoption”  Winston: adoption rate slows with competing, incompatible prototypes and absence of a supervening social necessity

Rogers’ Diffusion Model  A relative advantage over current practice  Compatible with current practices and values  Reduces complexity (ease of use)  Opportunity to test before committing (trialability)  Ability to observe results before adoption (observability)

A Five-Step Model  Potential adopters hear about the innovation  Are persuaded that there might be benefits  Try the innovation  Confirm or reject adoption decision

Communication  Shared messages within a social system  Lexis-Nexis data-mining, Jan 2003: RSS not yet being communicated through news wires or major newspapers, particularly when compared with blogs and blogging

What’s In a Name?  Newspaper (product) is printed (action) on newsprint (technology)  Blog (product) is blogged (action) with blogging software (technology)  No clear differentiation  Also the case with RSS  Hinders communication

RSS Visibility in Online News Social System Frequency of Appearance of “Blogs” and “RSS Syndication” in Lexis-Nexis News Wire Reports

Other Adoption Hurdles  Incompatible RSS formats > burden on developers  Non-integrated software > potential consumers must find and install new software  IT departments : no software installation  Everyday computer users are uneasy

Blogging Social System  Jan 2003: ~ 500,000 blogs  March 2005: 8 million - 24 million blogs  Pew Internet and American Life Project:  Spring 2002: 3% had created blog  March 2003: 11% had read blogs  Fall 2004: 8% had created blog  End of 2004: 27% of 120 M US adults had read blogs …. 5% used an RSS reader

RSS Social System  Technorati tracking  2 million blogs, March 2004  7.7 million blogs, March 2005  Syndic8.com tracking  2,500, mid-2001  286,000, January 2005

RSS Readers  Necessity because prior practice became cumbersome  Development also a function of stable specification  Became easier to find and use  A necessary condition for adoption (Rogers)  Yahoo! News: “We’re trying to make this understandable for normal people.”

Online News : Overview  Repurposing electrons from print to new media is a business decision  Few papers have adopted blogs  Social system disconnect?  Not enough time?  Syndication is an integral part of social system

Online News Social System  1994: San Jose Mercury News goes online  1998: Charlotte Observer uses blog-like format, Hurricane Bonnie  2000: WSJ launches blog-like feature, Best of the Web

Online News RSS Adoption Apr 2002New York Times (limited to Userland) RSS 0.91 Oct 2002Christian Science MonitorNow 25 RSS 1.0 feeds By Mar 2004 Washington Post125 RSS 2.0 feeds

Daily Newspaper Study  18 papers in top 15 urbanized areas of US (covers 65% of US population)  Leader: RSS 2.0  All implemented since late 2003  Only four have no official RSS feed  LA Times, Chicago Tribune  Miami Herald  Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Editorial Decision  Not technological decision > in 3 of 15 markets, papers are co-managed  Philadelphia Inquirer (16); Daily News (2)  Detroit News (35); Free Press (1)  Seattle Times (45); P-I (27)

Why Rapid Adoption?  Syndication in line with culture  Business model is evolving  How to reverse loss in readers?  How to generate online revenue?  Recognition of growth of blogosphere, driving readers  “Pay to read” barriers (WSJ v CSM)

Summary  RSS adoption has lagged adoption of blogging technology  Frequent, rapid specification changes hindered development of easy-to-use RSS readers  Growth of blogosphere is the supervening social necessity  RSS, not blogs, adopted by newspapers  Adoption decision appears to be editorial  May be business (reader) driven  RSS mainstreamed with Yahoo! News