RSS in Plain English

In my recent interview with Alan Kirschenbaum, I asked him to define what a breakthrough show on the Internet would look like.

His response is "It's written, scripted programming...where the content is so compelling that next week a thousand people come, and the next week two thousand people come and reaches a critical mass."

I then asked him if he watched "Ask A Ninja" as an example of an Internet breakthrough programming and though he found it entertaining and clever, he said "When I remember to watch it, I watch it. That's not exactly the same and unless you're arguing with me that are like when Seinfeld was on and people stayed home on Thursday nights because they wanted to see Seinfeld because they wanted on Friday morning to be able to have the conversation with the other people they worked with to say "'Did you see what happened?'" and you don't want to say "'No don't talk about that because I didn't see it yet.'" You want to be part of the conversation so you watched it the first chance that it was on."

I respectfully think the issue with Alan's Internet viewing habits is that he's failing to use the technology to his advantage.

"When I remember to watch" he said.

I still contend that "Ask A Ninja" is a perfect example of an Internet breakthrough new media product. The difference between Ninja and Seinfeld (format notwithstanding) is that viewers subscribe to the show (rather than tuning in or programming their VCRs or Tivos) by making use of RSS readers.

I believe in the brave new world of new media and the consumption of new media products, audiences will rush to be the first to click on a show and will constantly refresh their RSS readers to be the first (and perhaps the hippest and coolest) to catch programming as soon as it goes live on the Web.

My two cents. YMMV.




(Oh, and BTW...I got your RSS feed for Ninja right here.)