PR meets the WWW / Constantin Basturea’s weblog

Surprise, suprise: PRSA has a new media room, and it has an RSS feed!

Here’s a snippet from the press release announcing the event:

“Our objective was to post our news faster, especially when we are responding to a breaking story,� said Catherine Bolton, PRSA’s COO and executive director. “And to use the latest technology to alert press and members as that happens. Incorporating the RSS function into the site allows us to do just that.� [...] The PRSA online Media Room has many new innovative features:

• RSS reader functionality, to allow for notification of newly posted news releases. [...]
• Podcasts and other audio/video capability.

Very nice, guys. Now, here’s what I’d like to suggest:

• please stop using ALL CAPS in headlines; it’s hard to read. (And RSS is more about whispering than shouting.)
• headlines only for RSS = not cool (see the Geico ad). Add a blurb to the RSS headline.
• add separate RSS for the media room’s sections. Not everybody wants to read everything; allow people to pick what they want to read.
• since you just started adding feeds, how about RSS for PR Tactics and The PR Strategist?
• don’t hide the RSS feed at the bottom of the page; make it visible — add it to the left side menu. Also, add a button on the homepage.
• link to a page that will explain a little bit what RSS is (here’s why; here’s a comprehensive tutorial)
• include in that page a couple of links to (free) RSS readers and online tutorials (how to use Bloglines, RSS “how-to” screencast). This will help people who want to use RSS, but don’t know how.
• change the text that explains how to use the RSS feed. Right now it says:
  

  Click the RSS icon and then cut and paste the URL into your RSS reader.

  Why should people click on the RSS icon? It will just expose them to some XML code, and it’s not pretty. Better:

  Click the icon with the right button of your mouse, select “copy link address” from the menu, then paste the address into your RSS reader.”

  Even better: implement a one-click subscription mechanism with quickSub or USM. Then everybody will say: RSS? It’s so easy to use, a cavemen could do it (Geico, again).

• add an explanation on how people can use your feed to show your media room headlines on their websites/ weblogs (it could be useful for chapters’ webmasters). This will bring even more visitors to PRSA’s website.
• if you want some stats about the use of your feeds, consider burning your RSS through Feedburner.

That’s it.

So, when is the first oficial PRSA blog launching, anyway? :)

Today I asked Trevor Cook if he will consider offering a full-text RSS feed for Corporate Engagement, and he asked back:

What’s the benefit of full-text? I’ve read a few people saying that they just make it harder to use an aggregator. People really just want a headline and an excerpt and then they can go to the site if they want to read it?

There’s also an exchange of opinions on this topic over at Allan Jenkins’s Desirable Roasted Coffee.

Here’s my 2 cents on this matter:

• For me the benefit of getting full-text feeds is that I can read more postings in less time without leaving my aggregator.
• Different people want different things. I want to read your full postings (read: I value your ideas) without having to make extra effort.
• Most aggregators offer the feature of showing only headlines, or headlines and an excerpt. If you have a full-text RSS feed, any reader can choose to see only the headlines, or only headlines and excerpts in the aggregator. It doesn’t work the other way around.
• “Click to read more” is interrupting the flow of reading/scanning the postings. I’ll have to go outside my aggregator, read your posting, then come back.
• Clicking in order to read the whole post might work as long as you’re reading just a couple of feeds. When you read hundreds of feeds (I do), extra clicks do have a price — in time and attention.
• Not everybody who’s reading your feed has a broadband connection. If one has dial-up, having to open a new page means more waiting time.
• What’s in it for you? Why is important to have people coming to your blog, instead of reading it in an aggregator?
• If it’s about knowing the number of readers and other web analytics, you can always use Feedburner.
• If it’s about selling things, I would rather read short reminders in your feed, now and then (hey, I have a great report/ book/ whatever, check it out!) than have to go every single time to your blog in order to read your postings. (Dear Feedburner, here’s an opportunity: allow people to insert personal –not only AdSense or Amazon– text-based ads in their feeds.)
• If I hate excerpts-only RSS feeds, and you still make me click to read your postings, do you really think I’m going to look around to see what you want to sell, or I’ll just read the text you refused to show me in the first place?
• Please don’t get me wrong: it’s your feed, and you’re the one controlling what you want to share. If you want to offer an excerpts-only feed, to use it as a way of attracting people to your weblog or selling something — it’s your decision to make, and I’ll respect it. But I think that you’re actually losing readers and their goodwill by doing so.
• C’mon, you might lose me as a reader! This should be enough to make you change your mind, and start offering a full-text feed this very moment :)

Notes:

• The “I’m asking” part from the title should read as “please, please, pretty please!” :)
• Thanks to Trevor for allowing me to use his e-mail as a starting point for this posting.

March 15, 1999: Netscape Opens My Netscape to Millions of Web Publishers:

The My Netscape Network is built on the RDF Site Summary format (RSS). RSS is a new, open file format that enables the exchange of content summaries and e-commerce data between Web sites. By joining the My Netscape Network, publishers can use RSS to create their own My Netscape channel. This channel can then be used by the publisher to deliver frequently updated content to the fast-growing My Netscape audience.

On the same day - Dave Winer:

Our announcement: Scripting News is the first site to support RSS. [...] Compare RSS with scriptingNews format, which is richer, it includes enough information to do an elegant syndication-based search engine (coming later today).

Remember:

• My Netscape Network: RSS 0.9 specifications
• RSS History (Berkman Center @ Harvard Law School)

(Via Dave Winer’s Scripting News.)

6 years old, already? What’s next — going to school?