Simon Waldman's speech on the opportunity/threat of RSS and news aggregators

[Keyword: onlinejournalism]. A little late to report, but it's worth reading Simon Waldman's speech on the opportunity/threat of RSS and news aggregators, in which he sees "three critical issues we are going to face with RSS.

"The first is what’s happening to our readers.

"The second is what’s happening to our content.

"And the third – is what’s going to happen to our classified ads."

On the second he makes these points:

"The prioritisation, structure and design that we have given to our content in our papers – and on our websites - is lost as we all become just one feed among many.

"[...] My three tips for dealing with it are simple to say – but tricky to implement.

"The first is your content itself [...] has to be distinctive – it has to be able to stand out on a global news stand.

"[...] The second is more technical – but has to do with how your site is technically marked up, to make sure that you can offer exactly the feeds that people want, and that the information is presented in exactly the right way.

"And the third is that you have to think of the story page on your site – as your front page."