Usage Statistics for blue.paulbeard.org – September 2002
5 of the top 20 search queries I get are for CNN’s RSS feed (which of course is not provided by CNN): it’s the number 1 query with 4 more appearances in the 11 – 20 spots.
I wonder how many people are starting to browse their news this way and linking to it from an aggregator, rather than the home page of a site? And how will news organizations respond? Will they generate weak RSS files to discourage this (leading more third parties to roll their own) or will they find a way to leverage this new entry point? It’s akin to the argument over deep linking, though the site provides the links. One scenario is that pages read per user may go up as people scan the feed before going to the site: usage, defined as casual browsing, may decline, in favor of more focused reading. Never will good headlines and solid lead paragraphs (‘nut grafs’, as I recall them) be so important.