The editor of SitePoint.com recently did a piece that I thought ought to be examined a little closer. The editor brought up some points that on the surface “seem” quite valid. The thing is that appearances can be deceiving. With that in mind, I decided to “shoot down” Points #1 and #5 myself right off the bat.

1) SitePoint.com editor said; “RSS was never intended to syndicate anything besides headlines with descriptions. People are now syndicating full newsletters.”

My reply; “Email was never intended to become a compost heap for spam. Things change, we learn to adapt and life goes on. Yes, people that run businesses that have timely information to be distributed are using RSS to reach their audience.”

5) SitePoint.com editor said; “From a ‘looks’ standpoint, RSS is a step backwards for HTML newsletters. While images can be included, you have no control over their positioning.”

My reply; “Ok there two things wrong with that statement. The first is that he must be completely missing the point of offering a newsletter to a website?s visitors. Newsletters are about quality content, not ‘pretty pictures’. Besides, any aggregator worth beans is going to display the content in an attractive, easy to read font that anybody can enjoy. Secondly, I have seen many RSS feeds that are using alignment tags for their images.

As for points 2 through 4 that the SitePoint.com editor has made, I will quote Chris Pirillo’s response to each of them.

2) SitePoint.com editor said; “Having an RSS feed can mean big traffic to your server as all subscribers will check your server regularly for updates. If you’re on a shared account or your bandwidth is restricted, it can mean a big hit to your hosting bill. Imagine, 100,000 subscribers checking your RSS feed 4-6 times a day for updates!”

Chris Pirillo’s quoted response; “Imagine 100,000 subscribers visiting your site! Oh, the humanity! What’s worse: someone visiting your site, loading your graphics, images, etc. - only to see that it hasn’t changed… or someone polling a single text-based URL to see that it hasn’t changed. You do the math.”

3) SitePoint.com editor said; “It’s impossible to know how many people regularly receive and read your RSS feed.”

Chris Pirillo’s quoted response; “It’s impossible to know how many people regularly receive and read your e-mail newsletter and/or Web site. If it’s digital, you can track it. If you can’t track it, you’re doing “it” incorrectly.”

4) SitePoint.com editor said; “Advertising? What advertising? Besides simple text ads with no accurate impression tracking it’s impossible. You can also forget about putting Google AdSense ads in your RSS feed to earn revenue.”

Chris Pirillo’s quoted response; “Advertising? Lockergnome’s been publishing sponsored links through every one of its feeds since the very beginning. The trick? Don’t annoy the user. Unless you’re big into pop-ups, pop-unders, floating Flash, etc., RSS is pure salvation.”

My final response; “Time for the editor of SitePoint.com to ‘wake up and smell the Folgers’.”
;-)