Those of us who straddle both worlds have an important role as “mediators” (literally) — as you mention, people come to you for guidance, because you can translate the cutting edge jargon into applications they can understand.

Yet as you mention, it’s the act of the mainstream user clicking on a subscribe to feed button and knowing what to do with it that seems to be the hangup. There’s a conceptual leap there to understand what’s in that feed and why it’s good (you don’t have to visit the website, now the latest articles are “pushed” to you). But if a user only visits a handful of websites a day, RSS isn’t making things easier.

Then again, perhaps email still does the job as RSS. My father in law figured out how to have a financial website email all their new articles to him. If he wants to share those articles, he knows how to forward the emails. He doesn’t subscribe to hundreds of websites to where RSS would be a better solution. So perhaps this is another case where email works good enough.

“I could code that in a weekend” — I can totally relate as a web designer. I look at Craigslist and its completely retarded look and feel. But it’s simple, fast, and it works, plus it’s mainstream for sure.

Interesting idea, to just leave the mainstream behind. There are certainly going to be technologies that early adopters use (and forget) that never make it into the mainstream. However, can a site be successful if it only appeals to early adopters? Are there really that many of us, and can money be made off us (we don’t like to pay for things, after all)?

Great article, man. I really enjoyed your approach to this topic.

Nice analysis, though. I’m a fan of Common Craft’s how-to videos for good explanations of new, useful technology. Check out their RSS and del.icio.us videos, for example.

As geeks, we’re always looking for further optimization, but I don’t think the average user sees the time investment as worth it.