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"Really Simple Syndication” isn’t that simple...

If you think RSS feeds are giving you the same stories that you can find on a news site, think again.

International News and Problems with the News Media’s RSS Feeds

Main Results

Study Conclusions

Understanding Results

What is RSS?

Study Methodology

Authors

Reliability: Do RSS search results match website's search results?

Inclusiveness: Does RSS offer non-staff & archived stories (if also come through website search)?

Key info: Does RSS give headline/summary, date, time, reporter?

Timeliness: Are RSS stories as timely as those from website search?

	Overall Score	Reliability	Inclusiveness	Key Info	Timeliness
4. NBC/MSNBC	2.5

THE HEADLINES: Twenty-four RSS feeds were searched through the Yahoo! Pipes software: World News; Today Show; Today Show Video; NBC Nightly News; NBC Nightly News Video; Dateline NBC; Dateline Video; MSNBC All Shows; MSNBC Hardball; MSNBC Countdown; MSNBC The Most; MSNBC Scarborough Country; MSNBC Tucker; US Security; World: Top Headlines; International Terrorism; Conflict in Iraq; Asia-Pacific; Americas; Africa; Europe; Middle East and North Africa; South and Central Asia; Wonderful World; World News: International Terrorism. On average, the twenty-four RSS feeds returned about 50 percent of “today’s” stories that came up on MSNBC’s website, but on a day when a secondary news story was searched for (the search term was “Sudan” – the news was possible UN sanctions again Sudan and President Bush’s related speech at the Holocaust Museum) the feeds didn’t return any stories, and the web site had no stories. When searching for Iraq, there was a day when all but one of the web site stories came through the feeds, and there was a day when only one article came through the RSS feeds. Overall, the RSS feeds were reliable only about half the time – the results they returned did not consistently match those found on the website.
Other Issues:
	The twenty-four RSS feeds for NBC/MSNBC gave stories that were not staff written, but not all of the same non-staff stories as the web site. The website search returned articles from other newspapers and magazines, as well as from Reuters and the Associated Press. The RSS only returned some AP stories and a rare Washington Post story.
	The website consistently brought up archived stories, sometimes from the previous week and sometimes more than a month back. The RSS feeds also brought up archived stories, but not the same stories as the website.
	Occasionally, the website search pulled pertinent videos and multimedia (some of which were archived), none of which came through the feeds. The feeds returned some multimedia, but never the same as the website, and always archived.
	The RSS feeds were relatively timely in their delivery of stories. The feeds returned articles from several hours back, but not always the most recent ones. The website searches returned articles that were posted as recently as 4 hours previously, but the recently posted stories did not appear through the RSS feeds.
	Search results for the RSS feeds and the website gave the articles’ headlines/summaries. The RSS feeds occasionally returned the date; the website returned the time, but not the date. Both the RSS feeds and the website could have been better at displaying information with their stories. A full package of date, time, author and summary would have been more useful and informative.
	There was a great deal of archived content that came up through the RSS feeds that dated back nearly a year.
	The RSS feeds were not consistent in what they pulled from the website. When 10-12 consecutive searches were run through the feeds, the results changed several times. The website search was also not consistent. It changed at least twice in 10-12 consecutive searches.
(Danielle Hayner and Lauren Scott)

About NBC/MSNBC

Circulation/Audience

7pm Wed March 14 – Hardball with Chris Matthews: 113
NBC Nightly News: Week of Feb 26, 9,390,000

Online Access

No log in needed.

Parent Company

NBC Universal http://www.nbc.com/ owned by General Electric

Other Relevant Ownership and Interests

-CNBC http://www.cnbc.com/
-Bravo http://www.bravotv.com/
-Telemundo http://tv.telemundo.yahoo.com/corporativo/
-Universal http://www.universalstudios.com/index.php
-USA Network http://www.usanetwork.com/

Parent Company Revenue

$20.8 Billion for 2006

A center of the Philip Merrill College of Journalism and the School of Public Policy. Copyright © 2006 International Center for Media and the Public Agenda. 1117 Journalism Building, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742