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by Rick Martin, China

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Feeding China: Whose RSSponsibility?

Jun 4, 2007 15:31

Google has been feeding again.

First it ate up Doubleclick and now it's done gone washed it down with a shot of Feedburner. So what does this acquisition mean for China?

Explanatory Note: Feedburner delivers a Web site's latest content (i.e. RSS feed) to the end user as it is updated, usually through a news reader. That is to say, it helps people like me waste time on the Internet far more efficiently.

There has been some talk about Feedburner competing with similar Chinese companies, the most notable of which is Feedsky, the leader in the Chinese market. I'm using Feedsky on one of my sites, and I can safely say that with the exception of its feed-to-mobile service, it doesn't do anything to overwhelm. Feedburner is rehashing its Chinese language service, and should be ready to enter the Chinese market before you can say Hu Jintao three times, quickly.

But when you think about it, all this fuss is over a service that hasn't really gone mainstream yet. RSS is used by only a tiny percentage of my friends, and an even smaller percentage of my Chinese friends.

It's 2.0 technology that many news portals (aside from the biggies) in China are having difficulty moving to. The two major sites here in Liaoning Province, Runsky and NEN don't have any feed that I can find. And if a significant chunk of news sites aren't supporting RSS, then chances are the general population is not going to eat it up just yet.

That said, what's in the cards for Chinese feedburner wannabes?

I got a feeling it means a slow and agonizing death for all Chinese challengers to the feed throne.

Sure, Feedburner China isn't quite ready yet...
And sure, Feedsky has a headstart...

But does it matter?

When the general Chinese population pop their RSS cherry (and that may not happen until they discover it via Vista's desktop widget), whoever is best poised to feed the Chinese Dragon should win out. The Google acquisition surely means that Adwords will be integrated with Feedburner's service. And throw in on top of that the new Google Gears which looks to deliver RSS offline, and it'll likely be pushing Feedburner as a big part of that.

Well, all that just spells trouble for companies like Feedsky...

... when the feed fight actually starts.

On a side note before I finish this post...
A quick thank you to Will Moss for his help and advice in bringing me over to this Little Red Blog. Will is one of a handful of must-read China writers, and he's a ~~tough~~ impossible act to follow. If by some tiny chance you haven't discovered his blog yet, please check it out. I'm gonna miss his postings here for sure, but I'm glad he's still going Sino-strong on Imagethief.

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willmoss

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willmoss says...
Rick, I'm blushing!

Nice start, by the way. The issue may be which service does a better job of persuading Chinese bloggers and websites to adopt it. Perhaps the question is, when will Baidu put out an ad-integrated RSS feed service, if it hasn't already?

Jun 06, 2007 14:26

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RickM

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RickM says...
Thanks Will. :)

I expect Baidu would likely jump in soon. They just passed Sina this quarter as the biggest player in online advertising. So yes, they're number one in that department as things stand right now.

That said, I think the only way they might compete with "Google-burner" would be if they got Feedsky on board.

Jun 07, 2007 09:23

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About Rick Martin

After years of honing his skills playing Shinobi on the rocky shores of Newfoundland, he moved on to become a freelance ninja. But due to a lull in the Canadian ninja market, Rick Martin teleported to Asia where he studied Chinese and the dark arts of China blogging. When he's not busy with all that stuff, he makes appearances at an international computer company where he does a little something called "work". He can also be found on Twitter and Facebook, or contact him via Email.