Notes On A Revolution

The rise - or rather the lack thereof - of RSS as a viable and widely-adopted web technology remains a mystery to many. Even those beyond comfortable with the web like Fred Wilson haven’t managed to get into it, leaning instead on bookmarks in their browsers to get around - or increasingly, links from Twitter and Facebook.

I was a hardcore devotee however of the RSS feed, in my Google Reader every day. I would subscribe and subscribe and subscribe to various blogs and sites and consume content based on what I was in the mood for - tech news, furniture design, web comics, whatever. And this was the case day in, day out for years, until I started using Tumblr.

What Tumblr brought along was an already curated feed of items form a range of different interests. Some might be art or fashion, others musings from VCs. In other words, the content was the same as my Google Reader.

What it removed however was the need for me to choose, and replaced that choice with the opportunity to be surprised (dare I say delighted) by what I came across.

Feeds like this are becoming increasingly important in the consumption of content, Twitter and Facebook are both (on the whole I’d argue), less curated forms of my Tumblr feed.

RSS has been given a second life for me in the form of iPhone app Reeder. It allows me to see everything I subscribe to just as a single stream, and I dip into content as it pleases me, saving longer-form pieces for later consumption via Instapaper - a simple read-it-later service I can access anywhere with an internet-connection. This has saved me from the hell that was multiple-tabs in my browser, usually 20 and counting.

Just prior to Christmas a new app burst onto the scene - Instagram. This brings Hipstamatic-style photography with an in-built social network - but more on that later. Consuming content via Instagram is a matter of opening up the application and seeing what photos my friends have posted to their feeds. Sure the content is entirely more personal, and therefore even more highly curated. But with the mass of activity that my Facebook news feed has become (most of it unwanted), there’s something to be said for the simplicity Instagram has brought to the table.

…I’m thinking along the lines of these services and the role brands can potentially play - but that’s for another post. Feel free to chime in with thoughts of your own!