See that big orange button up the top there? Go click it. Then don’t come back.
My observation that my stats were down yesterday actually caused some people to apologise that they were just looking at the RSS feed, using Google Reader or similar. Let’s be clear: I’d far rather you were just looking at the RSS feed.
In fact, this should be your approach too. No matter how wonderful your web design, it’s far better that somebody keeps up with your writing, news, happenings and events without effort than occasionally remembered to stop in and see if there’s something new.
RSS provides a way for your readers (or, in this instance, my readers) to opt in and automatically receive everything. It’s like having an open invitation to come into their house whenever you feel like it, and tell them stuff you think is interesting.
How much more value is that to someone who wants to make money out of building a relationship around music online than something as passive and vulnerable as a simple web page?
Download Andrew Dubber's new book Music in the Digital Age - or, if you already have and you've been enjoying it or finding it useful, please consider paying for it here.
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5 Comments
Hi Andrew,
Actually I like your website and the sleek design, so I’v customized my reader (netvibes) to show your full website next to the feed list. Also, it’s always nice to see a picture of the author next to the post.
By the way, great interview in your previous post. Your vision and ideas are inspiring me.
Keep on going ;-)
I agree with Thomas about your website – I actually LIKE visiting nice, fast, clean websites like yours – so I check your rss feed for new posts via an active bookmark but come HERE to read the posts.
That, to me, is the real strength of feeds – that the user decides how they want your content delivered. More options = more happy users.
Like me.
Hi Andrew,
i must admit your blog has become quite an inspiration for my daily online life. Your fine writings convinced me of the advantages Feeds can have for staying informed, as well as for getting our music out to the public.
As a result, we recently changed our band website http://planetakis.com to a blog-like format so people can subscribe to it if they want.
Our experience so far is that much more people still prefer to subscribe to our newsletter than to our feed. Yet :-)
RSS is a fantastic tool, but guess that if you want to be “closer” to a band you love, you would rather visit the website directly or get the newsletter straight from the artist. Anyway it´s a cool addition in the communication toolbox.
Cheers from the german pop underground,
Robert.
P.S.
Thanks so much for your fantastic e-book!
Is this why my WordPress stats show many more hits than my Google Analytics? By far, the majority of my hits are via RSS. Do you know if Google Analytics shows this?
I’m new to your feed and site. Rapidly becoming a fan.
To your point about RSS – there are options there as well. You can show just a snippet in your feed, then invite readers to click over to the webpage for the full article (a la Digital Music News). Or you can insert adverts inline in your feed.
As a reader I have no problem with being asked to click over to the site for the full text. I bet a lot of others are fine with it as well.
Don’t be so hasty to chuck the web page user experience altogether…