Search vs. RSS?

Kevin Hale writes that RSS is becoming more important than search.
I think that gets something not-quite-right. It’s true that when you find a superb resource, RSS lets you subscribe to the stream, rather than having to go back and find it again. RSS processors like the clever new Feedshake let you be even more picky about your subscription reading.
But the universe is always going to have more good information than a person can read every day. By an awful lot.
That means that when you’re looking for new information, you’ll go out and search for it. Sometimes you’ll want to subscribe to the good sources you find. Sometimes you’ll want to subscribe to the search. And sometimes you’re looking for a one-time goodie.
So RSS sources, as a superset of blogs, are important to a search algorithm, because they are well-structured, and selected to be timely. And RSS is a good way to subscribe to a search. Search and RSS are complementary in these ways.
But RSS doesn’t displace search. That makes no mathematical sense.
This wants to be an infographic… there’s a medium number of resources you want to consume most of regularly, and a vast number of resources you want to tap into occasionally, using really good search.
The Hale article via Jeff Jarvis

2 thoughts on “Search vs. RSS?”

  1. But how much time do you spend knowing what you want and going to look for it – vs – exploring your world and discovering things?
    I am guessing that the latter is larger.

  2. Thanks for the link, Adina. While I agree with what you’re saying, Hale is providing some really important insight to where things may be heading and why.
    The marketing implications, which are of interest to me, are potentially profound. I hope some minds with greater capacity than mine will start putting some further perspective on all this.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *