I started "getting" Twitter back in November 2008. I'm sure some of you beat me to the punch, but most of you probably strolled in after that date or still don't get it. At the time, I wrote about Twitter as an RSS alternative.
If you're following a publisher who tweets all of his or her new articles or entries, RSS would become redundant. At the time I asked aloud: "Would people follow a Twitter feed as a means of following a blog like this one?"
Business Insider is now proclaiming Twitter has killed RSS readers.
But, personally, I never use RSS readers anymore--in part because of Twitter and in part because we've built a more convenient way to follow the news right into the site.
And based on the traffic trends to the leading RSS readers, it appears many folks are doing the same. As Joseph Tartakoff of paidcontent notes, Bloglines was shut down this week, and traffic to the grand-daddy of RSS readers, Google Reader, is down 27% year over year.
Personally, I still read the bulk of the blogs and sites I follow in Google Reader. It's a mandatory, daily read for me, and I swear by it. I'm a big RSS guy, but I'm also a big Twitter fan, and can totally see Twitter making RSS obsolete for some readers.
Has Twitter replaced RSS for you?
