http://www.icmpa.umd.edu/pages/studies/rss_study_details/study_conclusions.htmlhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
I had bookmarked this resource back in October, but forgot about it until recently, when I had the chance to take a look at it again. I'm very glad, because I found it to be quite insightful.
Posted on the website of the International Center for Media and the Public Agenda, a study done at the University of Maryland researching how well news outlets use RSS to share their news. It was interesting to find out that the study actually came to fruition in a roundabout way. The researchers were originally trying to study the quality of information being produced about the Middle East. In order to keep abreast of this news, they started to subscribe to RSS feeds from a number of different news sources. In doing this, they soon discovered the discrepancies between RSS feeds in their content and delivery. They had a different study on their hands.
Hence, they started new research evaluating RSS feeds from "19 of the top global news online sites to see which ones gave the users of their RSS feeds the same number of stories, the same range of news sources, in as timely a fashion as could be gotten if those users went to the individual website." They measured the sites on Reliability: Do RSS search results match website's search results?, Inclusiveness: Does RSS offer non-staff & archived stories (if also come through website search)?, Key info: Does RSS give headline/summary, date, time, reporter?, and Timeliness: Are RSS stories as timely as those from website search?
The team came to a couple of general conclusions at the end the study. Firstly, they discovered that RSS is largely inefficient at providing quality new stories that someone subscribed to a feed is interested in. They suggest that if a RSS subscriber wants specific information on a subject from the 19 news outlets studied, they will still have to click to the actual source's website. This was because, for the most part, there are many differences between what difference news outlets are willing to share through their RSS feeds. Some sources only share content created by their staff, while others also share content created by others such as the Associated Press, even if that content is available on their website.
The study also found that subscribers have no idea if they are getting the news that actually interests them. Some news outlets only put out a certain number of feeds a day, some only put out their breaking news stories while other only put out secondary stories. The users are not aware of what they are (or aren't) getting without going to the original website.
A final note acknowledged that RSS feeds need to include when a story was written, who wrote it, and from where. This information is useful to users in deciding if a particular news story is worth clicking to go into.
With RSS feeds often being totted as a great way to keep up on news and current events, this study took a step back and shed light on the number of ways that RSS fails to provide the comprehensive alerts that a subscriber may be looking for. There are many reasons why one would just as well end up visiting individual websites for their information needs.
Overall, a great study and great critique on the shortcomings of RSS in delivering news.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment