Ask Skeptic’s Mom: “What’s RSS?”

Posted on July 23rd, 2006 in Web 2.0, RSS.

Skeptic's Mom?So I’m kicking off a new recurring “column” (and I use the term loosely) called “Ask Skeptic’s Mom” in which I will ask my mother a question related to Web 2.0, and we’ll see what she has to say.  The rules we’ve agreed to are as follows:

  1. She gets 2 minutes to try to look up a term and come back with a response of some kind.
  2. She then gets 30 more minutes (if she wants, she does have a life, so no guarantees on the followup) to further research the topic and answer the question.
  3. While I can interrupt paragraphs and whatnot, the answer she provides goes verbatim, no ‘tweaking’ by me.

One other important thing - my mom is no slouch and uses technology in her life.  She has a laptop, a wifi home network (yeah, I installed that), a TiVo, surround sound, uh, and, uhm, well, a microwave (although it just broke, so I guess that doesn’t count).  She also knows about blogs, plays online games, and has never even come close to falling for a Nigerian scam (nope, she’s no Mary Winkler)!

So, today’s question was, “Mom, what is RSS and what is it used for?”

You asked me what RSS is.

Well, my first response is that I just don’t have a clue. In today’s world
it could be a disease…as in “I have RSS and nobody believes that it’s a
real illness; but I just don’t have any energy”. It could be someone’s
initials. I don’t know!!

So I googled it and I still just don’t have a clue. I didn’t understand the
first paragraph, got totally bored because there are words in there that
mean nothing to anyone who hasn’t heard of RSS.

The answer to your question: I just don’t have a clue!

Thanks Mom! 

Anyone is free to suggest future topics for Mom to address by leaving a comment here.

 
Related posts: [Ask Skeptic’s Mom: “What’s a Wiki?”] [Scoble gets new gig, moves to Bay Area, becomes dull?] 

18 responses

  1. Dharmesh Shah says:

    Added on July 23rd, 2006 at 11:00 pm

    How about:

    1. What is the long tail, and why is it called that?

    2. What’s Web 2.0 and when will Web 3.0 be released?

  2. Yo says:

    Added on July 23rd, 2006 at 11:34 pm

    Bleh… I think everyone here knows people out of the “echochamber” to whom they could ask all those questions anyway. Do whatever you want, but my suggestion to you is to go back and make fun of “web 2.0 companies” whatever that means and stop trying to be fancy here and especially stop lecturing wannabe enterpreneurs or making up easy “10 things blah blah” posts.

    Truth is, that post of yours - the 11 11 rules about crap - should’ve been addressed to VCs. They, not the to guys in a garage, are the bubble makers.

    Let the two guys in a garage do whatever they want, create whatever they want, dream about whatever they want. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that. I love that there are 2000 Flickr mashups. The problem my friend is when a VC or angel goes and invest in one of those mashups. But it’s easier to lecture a couple of youngsters with a hand on technology than lecturing VCs what to do with their money, isn’t it?

    Hope you can keep it up instead of going down.

  3. skeptic (blog author) says:

    Added on July 23rd, 2006 at 11:42 pm

    Yo - let me just make sure I hear you loud and clear - you prefer the posts that look at specific sites, or you just don’t like anything here? If it’s the former, I appreciate the feedback, if it’s the latter, well, okay, no skin off my back.

  4. Cody Morrison says:

    Added on July 24th, 2006 at 12:56 am

    Love it skep :) , its a nice change up. Keep it.

  5. En says:

    Added on July 24th, 2006 at 4:38 am

    Nice post. I like it, especially for the fact that even if somebody like your mother wanted to get interested, she doesn’t have a chance, because she lacks so many basics. The gap between those people who understand the Internet and don’t is increasing quickly.

  6. Sergey says:

    Added on July 24th, 2006 at 8:39 am

    Wow! Man, you’re genius, this is what just had to be done. Great idea! You have my respect.

    If you follow through with it and that doesn’t make you an ‘A-lister’ that would be a sign that all the hyping people are geniunely clueless, not just misled.

    Cheers!

  7. Erik Kalviainen says:

    Added on July 24th, 2006 at 9:00 am

    Unlike “Yo”, I really like this idea for a recurring column. All of these Web 2.0 terms (and, really, all computer terms) have so little meaning when taken out of context.

    Funny. Keep it up!

  8. Amanie says:

    Added on July 24th, 2006 at 9:00 am

    Very funny post. I totally disagree with Yo, this is a perfect example of going beyond the hype of Web 2.0. Yes, of course you may know a lot of people who don’t know what RSS is, but have you asked them to research it and come back with a response? “I have RSS and nobody believes that it’s a
    real illness; but I just don’t have any energy” should be the tag line for RSS feeds everywhere.

  9. Yo says:

    Added on July 24th, 2006 at 3:42 pm

    Skep, I prefer the posts that look at specific sites, and also some general comments, like the one you did about the lack of the letter ‘e’ for instance. What I didn’t quite like was the lecturing you did with the “11 clues for you” and the “I don’t know what that means” thing you’re doing with your mom. I guess I’m not into easy-to-write posts while I love thoughful insights about the prospects some of these “companies” have.

    I can understand though that some ppl like what you did with this post. They probably don’t know anyone out of the web 2.0 echochamber :-)

  10. Yo says:

    Added on July 24th, 2006 at 3:43 pm

    Forgot to say that of course, you can write about whatever you want - that goes without saying. Just throwing my 2c, that’s all.

  11. Fishwreck says:

    Added on July 24th, 2006 at 6:54 pm

    Your mother’s comments are hilarious and add a lighter flavor to the site. Perhap’s Yo and people of similar sentiment would find her views more relevant if they appeared more closely after a post where you’ve asked her such a question (for example, today’s post could have followed Do Web 2.0 people love themselves that much? back in June).

    Also, I think it might be fun to hear Mom’s occasional impressions of some of the sites you critique — especially the ones you completely trash.

    Sure, I could ask anyone’s Mom for an opinion, but not everyone’s Mom will have your mother’s flair or feel compelled to commit it to writing for the rest of us to enjoy. Mom rules.

  12. Sam @ MindSmack.com says:

    Added on July 25th, 2006 at 7:04 am

    This is awesome! Rock on momma!

  13. Dave Winer says:

    Added on July 25th, 2006 at 8:20 am

    Right on.

    Look at the results of the Google search, it’s angry geeks complaining about RSS and saying they know the better way to do it.

    Maybe some real people want to write something about RSS that explains what it means to people who use the stuff. It’s as if the “What is a car page” was a battleground between people who prefer wankle engines over internal combustion engines. To most people a car is something you use to drive places.

    When people ask me what RSS is good for, I start with “automated web surfing.” It gets you more news for the time you put into using the Internet. If you don’t want more news then RSS is probably not for you. But if there are subjects taht you are intensely interested in, and if the people covering the topics also offer the information in RSS form, then your computer (or a web site) can make web surfing a richer and perhaps more productive experience.

    I could write about this (and have), but it would be widely flamed about, by the same people who control the conversation on Google.

  14. Marshall says:

    Added on July 25th, 2006 at 8:59 am

    Your mom’s obviously not as smart as you both think she is! Lol, just kidding! You make a very valid point here of course. Reminds me of the Pew numbers at the begining of last year about how X% of people in the US read RSS feeds, but only a small percentage of those who do know that’s what their doing. Call it the MyYahoo effect.

    One way or the other, it’s a real loss. I swear, RSS makes my heart skip a beat and people missing out on the functionality here are really missing out on something important.

    It seemed there was an effort for awhile to build really good ‘what is RSS’ pages around various sites. I wonder whether sites like MyUSAToday and MyNewsweek will make a big difference in extending understanding of feeds.

  15. Vinit says:

    Added on July 25th, 2006 at 11:17 am

    Somehow, what Marshall wrote (above) makes sense …

    Might be the right path to follow is not to ask her “what is RSS”, but ask, what is MyYahoo (replace with comparable topic).

    Why?
    Honestly, your mom (or even mine, who blogs too) isn’t going to ever care about or know RSS. (Next thing … you will ask her if she knows what is Firewire or USB … if she uses a digital camera).

    MyYahoo is the real-life, ready-to-use-without-research version of RSS technology. Thats what matters.
    Might be RSS, to our moms should really mean “a collection of your daily news sources”.

  16. skeptic (blog author) says:

    Added on July 25th, 2006 at 3:34 pm

    Marshall, don’t you go messin bout my momma! ;)

    Good points all around, much more than I was expecting. While I appreciate Vinit’s remark about my mom not having to care about RSS (and she still doesn’t, but appreciates all the comments!) I think it’s awful that she can’t easily find out what it means in a method that is convenient.

    It’s one thing to say she doesn’t need to understand how a SQL query works, as that is a deeply technical issue (I know it’s not really deep, but for the ‘real world’ it’s plenty deep!). It’s another thing to say a term that is being thrown around all over technical publications and appears VISIBLY on MOST blogs today is something that she shouldn’t be able to comprehend.

    I think the best step forward for a technology like RSS is the iconography. If you think about Dolby, for example, most people don’t know what it is, but think it’s good for sound. Good enough.

    In my opinion, anyone who wants to know what RSS is should be able to find out inside of 2 minutes that “Its a technology that makes it really easy for Web sites that have news (such as headlines, blogs, etc) to EASILY publish their news to anyone who wants to read it” and give a few REAL-WORLD usage examples.

    My mom still won’t care, but I think the “Web 2.0 echochamber” can do her one better than is being done today.

  17. Marshall says:

    Added on July 25th, 2006 at 4:30 pm

    RSS = subscribe to new articles from lots of different sources, delivered to a spam-free inbox. How’s that?

  18. Vinit says:

    Added on July 26th, 2006 at 4:46 pm

    Hey Marshall, not fair … I already laid claim to “a collection of your daily news sources”.

    You are a mashup-freak ;-)

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