RSS and "brand awareness" Sep29 '04
The problem with gathering content through RSS is you lose the "brand awareness" from each site that you subscribe to.
The look, the feel, and the ambiance of a web site are just as important as the content. Plus it helps to easily distinguish one site from another.
The wrong brand awareness
When reading the latest feeds through my "feed reader," all I see is the brand awareness for the feed reader (in my case, Bloglines). I see the way the headlines and feed entries look, and the general appearance that the site has.
I could visually recognize Bloglines anytime. It’s got that slightly light blue color – with a hint of green:
And the logo:
As you can see, Bloglines has a nice "brand image" developed, which utilizes certain colors and style.
But I don’t want Bloglines brand awareness. I want each site that I read, through Bloglines, to have brand awareness. That way, I can distinguish one feed from the next – BEFORE I actually visit each site.
Important things to remember
I have two important suggestions, that web developers should always do, to help establish their site’s brand image – while viewers are away from the site itself. By this, I mean – when viewers are reading your content through an aggregator, or some other form of "distant viewing."
- Utilize the
<image>element within your RSS document. - Include a bookmark icon.
Include a bookmark icon
This suggestion, I won’t get into too much detail. Everyone knows what a bookmark icon is. When you bookmark a web page, you’ll notice that some bookmarks have a small icon next to the name. This is an obvious "brand awareness" technique.
This bookmark icon also shows up in feed readers.
Creating a bookmark icon can be accomplished by simply including a Windows .ico file in the root level of your web directory.
Utilize the <image> element
All flavors of RSS (0.91, 0.92, 2.0, and 1.0) support the <image> element. There is no reason that it should be neglected.
When you use the <image> element, your feed (in other people’s feed reader) will have a custom image displayed:
Notice the small logo of my site in the upper right hand corner. Sure, it may be small, but it’s noticeable, and it helps establish identity.
In my RSS file, I simply included this:
<image>
<title>matthom</title>
<url>http://www.matthom.com/feed/rss_image.gif</url>
<link>http://www.matthom.com/</link>
<width>88</width>
<height>31</height>
<description>Be everywhere. Read everything. Say Thank You. What are you thinking of next?</description>
</image>
The default width and height is 88 by 31, respectively, but you can make your image larger, if you wish. The max is 144 by 88.
The rest of the elements are pretty straight–forward. One thing to note – the <description> element should contain the same text that is included in the <description> element of the entire feed, even though this particular element is nested inside the <image> element.
In the end
By following these two steps, your site becomes more easily recognized through other mediums. This helps viewers develop a brand awareness for your site, and allows them to easily distinguish one site from the next.
After all, you are unique. Your site is unique. So, make sure it stays unique.
Add Feedback (view all)
Leave feedback
I have a bookmark icon, and it's in the right spot in my web directory, but it doesn't show up in some browsers. It's strange. And frustrat ... Read more.
I figured out why. I just read your sites source code. You don't have 'shortcut icon' defined in your head tag. Put this into your head tag: ... Read more.
argh.... [link rel="shortcut icon" href="/resources/terminate-icon.ico" /] replace [ ] with < > obviously! :P ... Read more.
Thanks... I tried that.. hope it works. ... Read more.
Hmmm. Is your website doing some really trippy thing with mod_rewrite? Your favicon looks as tho ... Read more.
Gracias. My favicon has caused nothing but problems, anyway. But your tip might help, in some way. Thanks again. ... Read more.
is published and produced by Matt Thommes - an independent publishing enthusiast, mobile blogger, content creator, informative writer, web developer from Chicago.
Never one to conform, Matt intends to promote the effect the web has on our lives, in an effort to intensify, instruct, and clarify all that is happening around us.
Similar Entries
- RSS Best Practices? (8 recent visits)
- What are your RSS opinions? (3 recent visits)
- New RSS feed – Bulls game alerts (3 recent visits)
- Filtered Lifehacker RSS feed using Yahoo! Pipes (69 recent visits)
- Web site stats via email or RSS (7 recent visits)
- Digg will eventually replace my RSS subscriptions (7 recent visits)
Stats
1 unique visit since September 2008
Brand awareness is pretty damn important for those site names which are quite widely used. Take for example, Terminate, the name is used quite a bi ... Read more.