When, a few years ago, it was possible to generate an RSS feed to a blog and alert those who wanted to follow your content avidly when you published, it seemed a big problem was solved about finding an audience.
But technology shifts shapes and is non-linear, and along the way other ways for people to read what they wanted emerged --- Twitter, for example, is a good curation of content via people or organizations worth following, in a kind of grander RSS. Facebook, too, is a personal reader.
So it came as no real surprise this week that Bloglines shuttered. Is it, as others like Pluck have found, not a core business any longer to be in the RSS field. Data indicates Bloglines had declined in traffic by nearly three-quarters this year; interestingly, too, Google Reader is down by more than one-quarter (but it has been adding features and shifting focus away from RSS).
What it indicates, though, is how technology is superseded rapidly by new functions and techniques. People find something new and discard what was once seemingly novel.
But technology shifts shapes and is non-linear, and along the way other ways for people to read what they wanted emerged --- Twitter, for example, is a good curation of content via people or organizations worth following, in a kind of grander RSS. Facebook, too, is a personal reader.
So it came as no real surprise this week that Bloglines shuttered. Is it, as others like Pluck have found, not a core business any longer to be in the RSS field. Data indicates Bloglines had declined in traffic by nearly three-quarters this year; interestingly, too, Google Reader is down by more than one-quarter (but it has been adding features and shifting focus away from RSS).
What it indicates, though, is how technology is superseded rapidly by new functions and techniques. People find something new and discard what was once seemingly novel.
