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Content Curation World

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Content Curation World

What a Content Curator Needs To Know: How, Tools, Issues and Strategy

Curated by Robin Good

Author: Robin Good

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Scooped by Robin Good

July 4, 2013 7:19 AM

Scoop.it!

From www.marco.org - July 4, 2013 7:19 AM

Robin Good's insight:

Marco Arment the creator of Instapaper, has an excellent and provocative piece on why Google is closing down all of its RSS appendages (they just closed also the RSS feeds in Google Alerts) and the logic behind this strategy.

He writes: "Officially, Google killed Reader because “over the years usage has declined”.1 I believe that statement, especially if API clients weren’t considered “usage”, but I don’t believe that’s the entire reason.

The most common assumption I’ve seen others cite is that “Google couldn’t figure out how to monetize Reader,” or other variants about direct profitability. I don’t believe this, either. Google Reader’s operational costs likely paled in comparison to many of their other projects that don’t bring in major revenue, and I’ve heard from multiple sources that it effectively had a staff of zero for years. It was just running, quietly serving a vital role for a lot of people."

"The bigger problem is that they’ve abandoned interoperability. RSS, semantic markup, microformats, and open APIs all enable interoperability, but the big players don’t want that — they want to lock you in, shut out competitors, and make a service so proprietary that even if you could get your data out, it would be either useless (no alternatives to import into) or cripplingly lonely (empty social networks).

Google resisted this trend admirably for a long time and was very geek- and standards-friendly, but not since Facebook got huge enough to effectively redefine the internet and refocus Google’s plans to be all-Google+, all the time.4"

Provides better perspective on RSS, Google, FB and Twitter and your future relationship with RSS.

Must-read article. 9/10

Full article: http://www.marco.org/2013/07/03/lockdown

(Image credit - RSS logo - Shutterstock)

Ashish Rishi's curator insight, July 4, 2013 11:49 PM

Love you Marco!!! Agreed and couldn't have asked for more. Internet to me was the ultimate democratization tool , a leveler, a ground playing field that challenged all institutions that had unnecessary walls around them - say educational institutions , you loved them, but they were for a fortunate few. Internet platforms ( including google) were formed for the love of internet, they have milked it enough and why not ? but now these guys are trying to become to old school walled gardens, I just hope that in doing so , they don't lose the charm that defines them.

Laura Brown's comment, July 6, 2013 2:43 PM

This is like the AOL model of the Internet which they offered years ago. People thought they were online but they were only online via AOL which mean AOL controlled what they say, how they saw it, etc. Many people were fine with the AOL version of the Internet. People who just wanted to look at email and use chat forums for personal reason and put up a personal home page, etc. However, the people who did not like being restricted or confined choose to opt out of AOL and use other ISP's (Internet Service Providers). I'm not surprised Google wants to take several steps back and go that way, take control of what people are allowed to see and make sure the ads are featured versus having the option to block them. They have already gone several steps backwards in bringing back pop up ads. No one seems to protest those, or the video and other bulky ads which take up a lot of bandwidth. People had a large voice against all that when it was still the artists, scientists and other geeks who ruled online. Now it is the marketers and the Internet reflects the change in a big way. It's like one big ad soup. Google just wants to tie it all up in a neat bundle.

Scooped by Robin Good

March 27, 2013 6:33 AM

Scoop.it!

From css-tricks.com - March 27, 2013 6:33 AM

Robin Good's insight:

If you are a curator or web publisher using RSS feeds an Feedburner here is something that you definitely want to pay attention to, as Google may soon close down this service.

Chris Coyer has an informative and useful article analyzing what is going to happen, and what you can do now or later to handle this likely event.

From the comments, Maxime Valette writes: "...sign that FeedBurner is shutting down soon is that the “permanent redirection” on delete is a new option since October. Before that it was only a “30-day redirection”. Update an outdated service like FeedBurner just to improve the deletion service is generally not a good sign."

Useful, informatve. 7/10

Full article: http://css-tricks.com/lets-say-feedburner-shuts-down/

Stephen Dale's curator insight, March 27, 2013 7:36 AM

It's as well to be prepared, and this article gives some useful tips should Google decide to shut down the Feedburner service (and the omens are not good, following the announcement about the shut down of Google Reader).

Asil's curator insight, March 29, 2013 10:18 AM

I moved all my RSS to Feedly when Google nerfed their reader last year, a sacrafice to the Google+ initiative. Feedly is, in many ways, superiour to the old reader if you are only using it for solo-reading, It doesn't have a social media component.

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