EDIT: I’ve added a couple of edits for clarity’s sake.
I’ve been ranting a lot lately about people sharing their ideas. However, to my shame I’ve actually been holding back on posting this one out of all the fears that I mentioned back in “Don’t hide your ideas”.
So here’s my one big idea which may be made of Awesome or 100% Fail. Most likely, it’s somewhere in between:
There are some very, very popular blogs out there with huge readerships. I’m thinking specifically here of The Sartorialist, a fashion photographer who wanders around world cities taking some amazing shots of people with great style.
However, for most people the only way to get all of those fantastic photos is to stop back at the site every day and look for updates.
“But, Kevin, why don’t those poor, misguided fashionistas just subscribe to it in their RSS aggregator of choice?”
Because they don’t know what a RSS aggregator is and don’t want to know.
There are plenty of people, no, probably most people who get their news, blogs, and media every day by opening up a folder of bookmarks. And lots of those people have iPhones. I’ve talked to these folks and they would love to catch up on their favorite writers, wonks and icons while they rode the train in. But they’re not ready to fire up Google Reader just quite yet.
Couple of problems I want to solve for users:
Problem #1: Understanding RSS and then subscribing to a feed is a pretty high barrier to entry for most people.
Potential Solution: One blog, One app. They’re already subscribed because they installed the app. Done. They have their posts and they’re happy. No technical understanding necessary.
Problem #2: Generalized aggregators have generalized interfaces which don’t display non-general content in the most compelling and fun to use way.
Potential Solution: Since RSS is pretty standardized, write a solid RSS engine which is repurposable but don’t try to be all things to all blogs on the interface side. Sites like The Sartorialist have very particular content and only ever post a couple of different kinds of content. [EDIT for clarity] The goal here is to write an individual custom interface for a site like The Sartorialist. [/EDIT]
Problem #3: Commenting. It just isn’t there.
Potential Solution: It’s easy to forget that half of the blog experience for many people is the social thing that comes out of commenting. I haven’t found a good mobile aggregator that handles commenting at all, let alone well. So we give the user a way to comment and be updated when someone replies to that thread.
Problem #4: Brand and the trusted source.
Potential Solution: Would you rather use a dull, all-purpose reader or a shiny, colorful, feature-full application from your favorite content provider? …Ok, well you’re reading my blog, so you’re a geek and you probably prefer the all-purpose reader like me. But feeling that you’re still connected to your favorite content provider will make a lot of people feel a lot more comfortable.
So why not just make a custom web page? [EDIT] Because a custom application is going to give you a better experience. [/EDIT] It’s all the same reasons to write any native app for the iPhone: intuitive, tactile interfaces; faster load times (not a lot of pesky graphics); easily statefull; offline reading… You know the drill.
So what do You think? Somebody already do it? What’s wrong with it? What’s right with it? Want to get involved? I love any and all feed back.
