Discuss RSS for Nonprofits

There is a cool little application that I've not seen talked about much: an email-to-RSS gateway.

http://www.mailbucket.org

It only displays the most recent 10 emails, but it is slick! Now the question, how would a nonprofit use it? And by "it," I mean the process. This particular service can be unreliable and it isn't currently being upgraded or maintained. It was down for a couple of weeks and I just discovered that it is back online.

Also, while the feed looks good, I've had some problems with Bloglines picking it up reliably.

This question is not on subject, but I'm curious about the date that is published for these postings: I noticed that the first post I made is dated May 7th yet there is a note within the post that suggests that I edited the post on May 6th!!

Not a big deal, but what is the scoop?

Edited to add: and this one is dated May 8th at some ungodly time in the early morning??!!??

Another Edit: I see now that this message and the other ones referenced, now carry more realistic dates and times; apparently there was a bug that is now fixed.

I am relatively new to RSS and am a little hesitant to get excited about it. Conceptually, it is great - spam-free, ad-free info (Just the facts please). However, I find that my constituents (K-12 educator)are still operating at a relatively primative level on the IT spectrum and find anything more complicated than e-mail terrifying. Unless RSS can be integrated into MS-Outlook or FirstClass - the two most commonly used e-mail programs in my area, I'm afraid I'm wasting my time.

John,

I would think that your constituents would be ideal for using RSS feeds. I think, however, it would take some work and effort and maybe a different look at what RSS could do for your organization.

First, forget all the hype and all the buzz and re-look at what an RSS feed really is. Stripped to its basics, an RSS feed is nothing more than a structured way of passing content around the web.

Email is another way. A web page is another way. All of these are just different ways of passing information using certain protocols.

Back to RSS: With that understanding, there are two issues: 1) Producing and making content available via the RSS protocol/process; 2) "Subscribing" to RSS feeds and then receiving and reading your subscriptions.

There are a variety of ways, from the highly automated to the hand-crafted for creating xml files that conform to the RSS specifications. Many Blog packages do it automatically; there are a number of products that will produce them; and you can take, as I've done, a product like Cold Fusion and create your own. It isn't hard at all and anyone can learn how in an hour or less.

Once you have a feed, all you need to do is load it on your website (and keep it updated, of course). People who are interested in your feed will come along and copy the address into their own reader/aggregator and subscribe themselves.

That starts us into the second part of this question: How do you read RSS files effectively? I add, "effectively" because if you just click on any RSS link, you are likely to see its contents -- but they are likely to be in a form that looks like gibberish to you: you may be looking at the .xml file.

If you use a reader to look at that same link, then you will see the contents in more intelligent form. Depending on how complete the feed is, you may see a summary with a link to a full article or you may see the full article.

There are a number of different readers out there. NewsGator, for example, has one that satisfies your comments: it presents the RSS feed in the form of EMail that is integrated into Outlook. For those folks who spend a lot of time with email/Outlook, this is an ideal solution.

But I'm using a product that might fit your association members even better. I use a product that can be pre-loaded with feeds that fit a particular subject area. In other words, you could provide your constituents with a reader that is preloaded to provide them feeds that include your own feeds and others from sites that are complimentary to the area(s) of interest.

(For example, the actual reader I'm using was sponsored by Southern University and originally came loaded with a number of educational resources that included some curriculum development resources.)

The preloaded reader solves one of the problems you constituents face: how do I find resources that I can use? You do that hunting for them and then provide them with a tool they can use.

Hope this helps?!

I think RSS feeds can be great. I have also found a few issues with them.

1) You must have enough relevant information that is updated regularly. A few of the gourps we work with do not have enough content and the ones that do, don't update it enough.

2) What are your demographics? Is your membership average age over 40? If so, then RSS feeds may not be as successful.

3) Do your members have enough time to devote to reading an RSS feed? Many organizations have members that get new information only when they need it. They often can not be bothered by constantly reading the latest news from your association. They would rather go directly to your site and search for what they need.

But, on a positive note, I think that RSS feeds are a thing of the future. They can be used by WAP devices, within external applications, and on a "My Yahoo" page like others mentioned.

John,

You might check out Newsgator. It integrates with RSS. It's also my understanding that Microsoft will be integrating RSS in the next version of both Outlook and Internet Explorer.

I used Newsgator for a while and found it overwhelming. Though it dumped my RSS feeds into a separate folder, my unread msgs folder still had a very high number attached to it. Frankly, it flipped me out.

I find that Bloglines can be a good tool for both.

As for adoption, I've also found that using RSS and then emailing the things I find to my collegues has resulted in not a few people stopping by my desk to say, How did you find that? That goes a long way to helping with adoption.

I have another collegue who has RSS feeds displaying on an intranet. The users are soaking in it and they don't even know!

-webb.

Here is an application that I would think would be great for small-to-midsized non-profits that do not have a centralized calendar function implemented: http://www.rsscalendar.com/

I've only started to check it out but it has some really great features -- including invitations and rsvp modules.

And, an application that is saving me money: my County Library has launched personal RSS feeds that show, among other things, books that are out on loan. I never can keep track of my outstanding books and I'm in the library all the time checking more out. This service alerts me when books are due.

It also can be set up to alert me when a book that I ordered is ready for pick-up -- notices that got lost in the email in the past.

But that calendar concept: very sweet! What I don't quite understand is the business model behind it. The site says "Beta," but there isn't much of an indication as to where they are going.

So I've been reading this thread, but have an oh-too-obvious question.

Where do I go to learn how to CREATE the RSS data feed that people will see? About I know is some blogger software does so automagically. We use Dreamweaver 2004 under OSX; feeding {eventually} an Apache box. The PHB goal is it will magically put all the headlines up. Somehow, I think it's never that simple...

What's available in authoring tools? Where do I go to read up?

Mostly, non-geek people I talk with know nothing about RSS and usually glaze over when I do my best to explain it to them. I'm sure Marnie and probly others do a much better job explaining this. My questions are: what is the adoption rate of RSS feed use in the general nonprofit population, and at what rate is it growing? I think it's still pretty small, and I'm not sure where a usage peak would top out -- at 20% of internet users, 35%??? What's your sense about this, -- I'm especially curious about estimates that have some statistics & evidence & reasoning behind them.

lesher,

You asked:

Where do I go to learn how to CREATE the RSS data feed that people will see? About I know is some blogger software does so automagically. We use Dreamweaver 2004 under OSX; feeding {eventually} an Apache box. The PHB goal is it will magically put all the headlines up. Somehow, I think it's never that simple...

What's available in authoring tools? Where do I go to read up?

It depends on what your using to create the RSS feeds. Is it a static page or are using something to manage the content (many systems are including ways to generate RSS)? If you want to get into the details of creation, RSS workshop: Publish and Syndicate Your News to the Web is a good place to start.

-webb

Phil,

I usually talk about RSS as a way to listen: you can listen to what people are saying by signing up or by searching through existing feeds for topic based information. I agree, though, it's not an easy explanation.

I have no idea what the adoption rate is -- either as readers or as producers. Wish I did (been thinking of trying to get a survey going to get at this and related topics).

I do think that it helps get over the hump of having people come to your site and allows people to find you because you publishing items that are of interest to them -- and they find you through searching feeds -- rather than searching google.

Over the months since this topic was first started (May 05), the "buzz" regarding RSS has been growing. Two things stand out: mailers are starting to report that 30-40% of opt-in email is not read; and Microsoft has made a strong committment to RSS -- will be supported by the MS Explorer 7 due out this fall.

In off-list communications, several members have asked for more information about how RSS strategies fit with eNewsletters, for example.

I've pulled together a very brief, animated slide presentation on three different implementations of RSS; these will give you some ideas on the possibilities.

And, I've put together an actual implementation of a personalized RSS feed that links you to information about wines. The key with this demo is that a unique ID is assigned and can be used to track constituents around the site.

Check these two items out; your feedback would be greatly appreciated:

http://www.boadminsys.com/rss/rss.cfm

Nicely done Ward!

Maybe we could incorporate that presentation into a TechSoup article? What do you think?

Thanks, Michael!

I'd be interested in exploring how to present the concepts within an article. In fact, it would be kind of fun to make some sort of interactive article that built on some of the characteristics of RSS.

How would you propose to move forward?

Hi Ward,

In order to move forward on your fantastic idea, please follow the instructions on the Write for us page. We look forward to receiving your pitch!

Thanks for offering and thanks to Michael for sheparding the conversations in the direction of article content.

Best,

Susan