rss

The Story of Our First Video, 2 Years Ago Today

leelefever — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 00:34:29 +0000

It's true. Two years ago today, we posted our very first video, RSS in Plain English. We had no idea what we were doing, or how that video would transform our lives.

We had a tripod, camera and a whiteboard, and that was about. The video was lit with bedroom lamps and I was speaking directly into the microphone on the camera as I moved around the pieces of paper. The video was edited with Windows Movie Maker. It was inspired by a blog post from 2004 with the title "RSS Described in Plain English."

Of course, the technical quality of the video clearly shows that we had many, um, many opportunities to improve:

We posted it about 10pm on the night of the 23rd and by noon the next day it hit the front page of Digg, partially thanks to our first comment by Rob Cottingham, minutes after it was posted. We were both blown away by its popularity. Here are a couple of tweets from that day:

This blog post (which makes me smile) captured some of the initial buzz:

It's been 24 hours since the video was posted and we've seen 15,000+ page views, 800 Diggs , 350 Delicious bookmarks and 50 comments.

Of course, the big question for us became, can we do it again? Soon after we started work on our second video, Wikis in Plain English. Once that was complete, we started to feel confident that this was something we could do.

Looking back at the RSS video, it's a bit painful to see how rough it is compared to our work now. However, I'm struck that the roughness didn't matter. It was the message, the script, the communication that mattered far more than the bad lighting and sound. While we feel good about technical quality now, we still focus the majority of our attention on what made that first RSS video work: a simple and clear explanation.

Why I Stopped Reading Blogs (for a while)

leelefever — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 03:36:32 +0000

1000+ items. That's what Google Reader told me I need to read to catch up with my RSS subscriptions. It's intimidating. My RSS feeds were mocking me. I could see them with sneaky voices "hee hee, you'll never read me, you don't have the time. ha ha." The sad part is, they were right.

I stopped opening my RSS reader months ago. It wasn't a concerted effort, I just didn't do it. What I found was that longer I stayed away, the easier it was to stay away. Returns diminished with each passing day and at some point I gave up on reading anything via Google Reader. Now, I'm happy to report that I'm back on the wagon (I think that's the right analogy). My time away gave me some perspective on what I want to read and where I want to read it.

Culprit #1: Twitter

I was trying to figure out a clever title for this post along the lines of "Twitter Killed the RSS Star", but it wouldn't work. The sentiment works in my case however. I have integrated Twitter into my life and I think that it became a surrogate for reading blogs. Lots of people I follow share their blog posts on Twitter, I have found the relationships that are created to be more personal and it's all so lightweight. Watching Twitter updates gave me the feeling of connection, awareness and discussion that I love about blogs in an efficient and manageable package. Before I knew it, Twitter had replaced reading RSS feeds.

Culprit #2 Subscribing to the Wrong People

Looking back, my RSS reader has been filled with people I felt I should be reading. Let me repeat that - should be reading. I think that's a problem. I felt like I needed to watch TechCrunch to stay on top of tech news. I felt like I needed to subscribe to experts in my field(s). Sure, these subscriptions were educating me and raising my awareness, but I seriously question the cost/benefit. Reading them felt like homework - and I don't like homework.

This all came to a head recently when our best friends (and former Seattle neighbors) came to town and stayed with us. Within a little while, blogging came up and it turned out they had both posted a few entries in the run-up to the trip to Seattle. I had no idea. I had to tell them that I stopped reading blogs and I felt bad for not keeping up. These people matter about a million times more than the people clogging up my RSS Reader and I had let the 1000+items-of-things-that-don't-matter scare me away.

What I Did

Like I've done before, I started over. I opened up Google Reader, took a nice long look at the list and asked myself - does this matter to me? Do I even know this person? Will I be worse off without this content in my life? No. No. No. Nearly everything was wiped clean.

When I started adding feeds to fill the void, I did it with a filter. My RSS reader isn't for news, it isn't for niche analysis, it isn't because I "should". My RSS reader is now filled with subscriptions to sites that matter to me. These posts are written by people I know and care about. They make me feel like reading RSS is a treat - a few minutes spent being with an old friend.

It's only been a little while, but I think RSS may, once again, become a strong contender for my passive time. Now I can miss a day of RSS reading, open the reader and have Google Reader tell me I have 10 posts to read. That, I can do.

Why I Stopped Reading Blogs (for a while)

leelefever — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 03:36:32 +0000

Culprit #1: Twitter

Culprit #2 Subscribing to the Wrong People

What I Did

Why I Stopped Reading Blogs (for a while)

leelefever — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 03:36:32 +0000

Culprit #1: Twitter

Culprit #2 Subscribing to the Wrong People

What I Did

Why I Stopped Reading Blogs (for a while)

leelefever — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 03:36:32 +0000

Culprit #1: Twitter

Culprit #2 Subscribing to the Wrong People

What I Did

Why I Stopped Reading Blogs (for a while)

leelefever — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 03:36:32 +0000

Culprit #1: Twitter

Culprit #2 Subscribing to the Wrong People

What I Did

Why I Stopped Reading Blogs (for a while)

leelefever — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 03:36:32 +0000

Culprit #1: Twitter

Culprit #2 Subscribing to the Wrong People

What I Did

Why I Stopped Reading Blogs (for a while)

leelefever — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 03:36:32 +0000

Culprit #1: Twitter

Culprit #2 Subscribing to the Wrong People

What I Did

Why I Stopped Reading Blogs (for a while)

leelefever — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 03:36:32 +0000

Culprit #1: Twitter

Culprit #2 Subscribing to the Wrong People

What I Did

Why I Stopped Reading Blogs (for a while)

leelefever — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 03:36:32 +0000

Culprit #1: Twitter

Culprit #2 Subscribing to the Wrong People

What I Did