11 Responses to “RSS .v. Twitter”

1. John Sutton
   May 6th, 2009 @ 10:29 am

   I read the original this morning and thought “rubbish”, but didn’t have the nerve to comment! So I’ll comment here instead. As long as there are bloggers and news sites then RSS will be an indispensible tool for people with a crowded schedule. Did I find this article via Twitter – no (I don’t even know if John’s on twitter). It popped up in my feed reader. If we start relying on Twitter for news then we will fall susceptible to all the hyped tweets around major events such as the Mumbai attack, the plane crash in the Hudson etc. How would we be able to distinguish between a genuine eye-witness account and someone tweeting to join the hype, or worse, for their own nefarious ends?

2. Daily News About Twitter : A few links about Twitter - Wednesday, 06 May 2009 04:00
   May 6th, 2009 @ 11:14 am

   [...] RSS .v. Twitter : John Connell: The Blog [...]

3. Tania Sheko
   May 6th, 2009 @ 12:19 pm

   RSS feeds my mind, and Twitter gives me answers to my questions.

4. Joss Winn
   May 6th, 2009 @ 12:25 pm

   He’s wrong because he’s confusing a web standard with a web service. RSS is a metadata standard and Twitter is an API. They are complementary not in competition. He’s not the first to confuse the two because Twitter is being *used* in a similar way to what RSS is mainly used for (syndication on user generated content). But a proprietary API isn’t a threat to extensible metadata standards (RSS/Atom/RDF). I’m still wondering if he’s going to reveal it was just a joke to see if people are confusing services with standards. It’s like saying GMail will kill SMTP.

5. John Connell
   May 6th, 2009 @ 12:31 pm

   I suspect, as a few commenters have suggested, that he is merely trying to start an argument over a nonsensical point. If that proves to be the case, then his bad faith deserves the same disdain as his logic.

6. David Sutherland
   May 6th, 2009 @ 12:36 pm

   Hi John

   I too don’t believe RSS is dead at all. Like the original writer, I too didn’t check RSS for a long time as I was using Twitter, but have found I’ve now returned to RSS, largely due to the impressive FeedDemon. Ok Twitter can alert a mass audience about headlines/blogs reachable by RSS, but opening the shortened URL links with another extra browser tabs slows down the browser performance; and that’s after retrieving all the content over my dodgy broadband connection(!) FeedDemon already has the content loaded. With FeedDemon, I can stay in the same window, and switch between stories (and other RSS feeds from other papers too) extremely quickly.

   I believe FeedDemon and other good RSS Readers have replaced the need for email newsletters! They’re dead, RIP.

   Blogs aren’t about headline making, breaking news are they? Personally I know Manchester United won last already, but I’m happy to read what the Guardian says this morning. Reading them in real-time not necessary, as John you allude to. I’ve still not read some Sunday Herald articles, but they’re in my RSS reader waiting for me. No need to search twitter!

   BTW I found this article via Twitter, but would have in FeedDemon later today.

7. Melanie
   May 6th, 2009 @ 12:44 pm

   I’m getting so annoyed with these kinds of stories about Twitter replacing email, Google, RSS, blogging, the internet. Next, they’ll be saying Twitter can replace thinking, breathing and eating

   Twitter is a deceptively simple and glorified RSS/IRC app. What makes Twitter Twitter is the user base – virtually nothing else.

   But here’s the rub. It’s precisely *because* it is an RSS based tool that I refuse to make my updates public. And despite the masses of morons who do not understand what aggregation means in the context of any website or service anywhere in the world repurposing your content. or worse, for life streamers and silly people uploading their GEO location, personal information, family, activities and material wealth – a great opportunity for identity theft and/or home invasion … (btw, Shirky was just a victim of identity theft. Who is next?).

   Of course, whenever I mention this to those who have no thought whatsoever for their privacy rights, surveillance society or datamining I get the same dumb privacy-ignorant replies (i.e., that privacy is about hiding things or secrecy. no, it’s about rights and choices and freedoms).

   When I put up a public blog post it is the product of much time and effort. I’ve really thought it out. When I tweet – or when you tweet – it’s not something you labour over for an hour or more. But — by design — an ephemeral expression.

   I’d love to be able to update in a way that couldn’t be scraped or repurposed. If you’re following my feed, you get to read it. If you’re not, too bad. I’d like a tool that is more like a real life conversation – totally ephemeral. And disappearing right after you’ve posted (like our words while talking at a cafe. memory the only “recording” device). That would be truly interesting …

   Those who wish to *document* and syndicate their thoughts can use the tool that is designed for that (RSS). Those who wish to simply share and converse – could do so.

   Call it my Mandala project. I’m looking for less documentation and surveillance, more authentic exchange. If you have the means to capture the conversation then bully for you. But it shouldn’t be the default setting.

8. David Sutherland
   May 6th, 2009 @ 1:16 pm

   #7 Melanie

   You make a good point about privacy. Internet safety is so important as I’m sure you educators are well aware of I take it internet/Web 2.0 safety is in the curriculum? If not, us Cisco folk could help! My wife is primary teacher and I know she’s not aware of the dangers out there.

   I tweeted recently myself and my family were away for the night, thankfully we weren’t burgled! Phew! I was worried.

9. John Connell
   May 6th, 2009 @ 1:47 pm

   I guess we have to keep these things in some kind of perspective, David – what were the chances that someone intent on burgling a house in your neighbourhood would just happen to catch a Tweet from you mentioning that your house was likely to be empty for a night? We want to promote safe use of the Net, but we don’t want to promote paranoia.

   As for the school curriculum (which, of course, differs radically from one country to another), Web safety is only rarely effectively dealt with except in pockets, usually because an individual with the necessary knowledge has come forward either at classroom level or at local administrator level.

   And, of course, one of the reasons why it is so hit and miss is that few teachers actually have the skills, knowledge and experience necessary to even understand the issues for themselves, never mind to teach them to others.

   A bigger issue, I would argue, is that the problem tends to be ’solved’, not by building these issues into the curriculum, but by network managers (some of them even using Cisco equipment) who have no clue what it means to run an education network. Most have been trained to run enterprise networks in a commercial or service context, and the result is that they believe the most effective way to ensure safety on the network is simply to lock everything down.

   A good enterprise network might work with just a small number of approved applications running. An effective education network needs to enable teachers across the system to introduce dozens if not hundreds of applications, sometimes only to be used with a group or a class. They also need to be able to access websites and content that, filters deem unsuitable, often for spurious reasons. Trying to explain this to a non-educationist network manager is difficult to say the least.

   You might like to glance at a couple of earlier posts on the subject:

   http://www.johnconnell.co.uk/blog/?p=1002

   http://www.johnconnell.co.uk/blog/?p=350

   Or, from some others who have written about the issues:

   http://nwinton.wordpress.com/2006/09/19/who-watches-the-watchers/

   http://edu.blogs.com/edublogs/2009/02/exclusive-some-education-authorities-are-truly-incompetent.html

10. Ranjit Padmanabhan
    May 7th, 2009 @ 1:46 am

    I’m with the others who believe that Steve’s peculiar RSS v. Twitter comparison was written to generate conversation. It apparently worked.

    If pressed to make a comparison…
    “Twitter is an unfiltered stream of subjective sound-bites, drawn from sources of widely varying quality. It has vitality, energy and immediacy, unburdened by credibility or consistency.

    As such, Twitter is perfect for informal communication, entertainment and as a pointer to where the more serious stories are located. As a conduit for high-quality information, RSS reigns supreme.”

    For those who care, a more detailed opinion on the failure of RSS Readers is available on the MashLogic blog.

11. Melanie
    May 7th, 2009 @ 9:00 pm

    David,

    The more I read of your comment the plainer it was that you were making light of my concerns.

    I realise how easy it is for webby people to deride those with privacy and safety concerns. As a person who challenges “internet panics” (i.e., fear of the web and hype about fear of the web) I am well versed and articulate in the many, many, many arguments against anti-internet fear mongering.

    As woman and as a teacher, I have also been treated to the ugly side of the web in the most personal and frightening of ways. Safety and privacy are very real for those of us who have had our violated. Sadly, these concerns are not taken seriously by privileged tech determinists who would rather disparage someone’s genuine and intelligent responses than respond with dignity and understanding.

    My point here is that web enthusiasts who dismiss people with safety and privacy concerns whole cloth are behaving with just as much thoughtlessness than those they deride.

    What I see in a of the more dismissive remarks comes from a place of privilege. I work with at risk youth who are bullied for being queer or poor or different. Their life online is very different than yours. I also know teachers who have been subjected to the most brutal forms of online harassment and threats – this is especially common in the UK (from what I gather. so common they set up a task force to deal with teacher bullying online).

    It’s good to know the facts but it’s also good to actually talk to people for whom life online constitutes very real risks.

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