An actual campaign to try and bring the need for Atom/RSS out from Google+ to Google's attention.
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Originally shared by Feed me Google+RSSRunning a Google+ Page campaign:
Taking stock and 6 lessons learned after 1 month in the saddle
Warning: this post may contain tactical name dropping
Just over a month ago +Julian Bond posted one of his occasional grumbles about Google+ not having RSS feeds for our accounts 'baked in'. And we agree with him. So +Jonathan Schofield created our Page as a Google+ campaign experiment.
Thank you to all 70 who have since reshared our proposition (goo.gl/NbCd1) and all 300 or so who have +1'ed us or added us to their circles. But collectively that puts us at only ~0.000003% of the gplus population.
That's not enough to get our message addressed by Google, people! If we really want to make a strong case for RSS being an integral part of G+, a lot more people are going to have to join us and we're going to have to be more vocal about it.
------- + + + -------
6 things we've learned while running this campaign page in our spare time over the past month or so…
1. Get the name right from the start
We didn't have 'RSS' in our name initially, and then when we realised we should incorporate it to help get picked up in search, we found we had to wait 30 days before we could change it!
2. Pages have major constraints on their strap line
The hovercard for a Page only shows 1 line of text that's usually less than 30 characters. That gives you a very small window to encapsulate what your Page is about (goo.gl/7BPCl).
We've tweaked and tweaked ours and now feel we have an optimal piece of #microcopy : "G+RSS should be ‘baked in’. Add your voice to ours." -- the first sentence just fits in the hovercard.
3. +Robert Scoble commented on RSS and the need to be heard in his impassioned piece on the common web…
"It’s too late to save the common web. It’s why, for the past year, I’ve given up and have put most of my blogging into Google+. I should have been spending that effort on the web commons and on RSS but it’s too late." (goo.gl/FS5Yb)
We're more optimistic about open standards like RSS over the long term (goo.gl/A3BqE) -- as are others like +Jeff Sayre and +Kingsley Idehen -- but you have to admit Robert has a point for the foreseeable future.
4. We don't have enough clout (or Klout)
If you want your message to have impact you either have to have influence already or get picked up by a few people with a big following who will make a bigger noise for you. We've been restrained about name dropping such people in our posts so far because doing so feels uncool. But let's throw caution to the wind just this one time to see if some other relevant folks with bigger followings than us would like to pitch in:
+Felicia Day has advocated RSS here on G+:
Check out the 3rd comment from +Louis Gray on her 26 October post in which he said, "…glad to have your support for RSS. At Google, we're huge fans of making information discoverable, sharable and useful." (goo.gl/RKtes) Hmm.
+Dave Winer: the godfather of RSS writes often at scripting.com
(and not at all here, it would seem).
+John Battelle: writes great tech commentary over at battellemedia.com and in part inspired (goo.gl/y9nb6) Robert Scoble to rant on the demise of the common web.
+Alan Green is a Google Engineer working on Google Reader.
5. There are lots of good folks plugging holes in the G+ ecosystem
Have a trawl through our 17 previous posts and you'll find a few of them.
6. For all we know Google are listening
And working on native G+RSS. If they are, they're just not telling us! As +Mary Sullivan Frasier commented recently…
"The more deeply entrenched I become in the relationship I seem to be having with Google, the more aware I am of how skilled they are in the art of one sided conversation." (goo.gl/s9Fpv)
------- + + + -------
In closing, if you have clout, or influence on someone who does, saddle up and let's go tilting at a few windmills.
Long live RSS!
Taking stock and 6 lessons learned after 1 month in the saddle
Warning: this post may contain tactical name dropping
Just over a month ago +Julian Bond posted one of his occasional grumbles about Google+ not having RSS feeds for our accounts 'baked in'. And we agree with him. So +Jonathan Schofield created our Page as a Google+ campaign experiment.
Thank you to all 70 who have since reshared our proposition (goo.gl/NbCd1) and all 300 or so who have +1'ed us or added us to their circles. But collectively that puts us at only ~0.000003% of the gplus population.
That's not enough to get our message addressed by Google, people! If we really want to make a strong case for RSS being an integral part of G+, a lot more people are going to have to join us and we're going to have to be more vocal about it.
------- + + + -------
6 things we've learned while running this campaign page in our spare time over the past month or so…
1. Get the name right from the start
We didn't have 'RSS' in our name initially, and then when we realised we should incorporate it to help get picked up in search, we found we had to wait 30 days before we could change it!
2. Pages have major constraints on their strap line
The hovercard for a Page only shows 1 line of text that's usually less than 30 characters. That gives you a very small window to encapsulate what your Page is about (goo.gl/7BPCl).
We've tweaked and tweaked ours and now feel we have an optimal piece of #microcopy : "G+RSS should be ‘baked in’. Add your voice to ours." -- the first sentence just fits in the hovercard.
3. +Robert Scoble commented on RSS and the need to be heard in his impassioned piece on the common web…
"It’s too late to save the common web. It’s why, for the past year, I’ve given up and have put most of my blogging into Google+. I should have been spending that effort on the web commons and on RSS but it’s too late." (goo.gl/FS5Yb)
We're more optimistic about open standards like RSS over the long term (goo.gl/A3BqE) -- as are others like +Jeff Sayre and +Kingsley Idehen -- but you have to admit Robert has a point for the foreseeable future.
4. We don't have enough clout (or Klout)
If you want your message to have impact you either have to have influence already or get picked up by a few people with a big following who will make a bigger noise for you. We've been restrained about name dropping such people in our posts so far because doing so feels uncool. But let's throw caution to the wind just this one time to see if some other relevant folks with bigger followings than us would like to pitch in:
+Felicia Day has advocated RSS here on G+:
Check out the 3rd comment from +Louis Gray on her 26 October post in which he said, "…glad to have your support for RSS. At Google, we're huge fans of making information discoverable, sharable and useful." (goo.gl/RKtes) Hmm.
+Dave Winer: the godfather of RSS writes often at scripting.com
(and not at all here, it would seem).
+John Battelle: writes great tech commentary over at battellemedia.com and in part inspired (goo.gl/y9nb6) Robert Scoble to rant on the demise of the common web.
+Alan Green is a Google Engineer working on Google Reader.
5. There are lots of good folks plugging holes in the G+ ecosystem
Have a trawl through our 17 previous posts and you'll find a few of them.
6. For all we know Google are listening
And working on native G+RSS. If they are, they're just not telling us! As +Mary Sullivan Frasier commented recently…
"The more deeply entrenched I become in the relationship I seem to be having with Google, the more aware I am of how skilled they are in the art of one sided conversation." (goo.gl/s9Fpv)
------- + + + -------
In closing, if you have clout, or influence on someone who does, saddle up and let's go tilting at a few windmills.
Long live RSS!