Now a panel on syndication's future - David Sifry, David Geller, Mike Davidson, and Eric Elia. So - is RSS going mainstream (estimated usage is 8% or under). It will take time - Vista, with built in support (and the various browsers) will push it. Sifry points out that it will be mainstream when we don't recognize it anymore (or have to know that we are dealing with it). He's probably right. Elia says that syndication is already mainstream, while end user pickup is still lagging. Publishers are already there. meaqnwhile, Davidson is more pessimistic. He thinks it will take longer than we think, and that most people will access RSS via web apps rather than via readers.

On the other hand - tools like iTunes are maiking it more accessible - "give people the product they want". Davidson relates it to TiVO pickup - people don't know how useful it is until they see it. I can verify that one from experience.

What about losing control of your content? Sure, but it's all about respecting the user and trying to giving them what they want - which will bring them back to you. Walled gardens won't work. Elia points out that many publishers are nervous because of the perceived loss of editorial control. Interesting - Sifry is telling us about a deal with Paramount, whereby paramount wants to syndicate the blogosphere conversation on their pictures - which is an interesting end run around the tyranny of well known reviewers.

What about measurement? Will we see tools that give back demographics (etc)? Geller says that those tools exist, and you can get that information. Sifry points out that the data isn't going to be like HTML - the number of requests from readers, for instance. That can be dealt with, but it takes effort to derive good numbers. There's still work to be done in getting the tools and understanding spread around.

Full text versus headlines? Davidson believes that RSS is mostly a notification technology, not a reading technology. So he doesn't want full text, or ads, etc, etc. He thinks full text feeds ignore the economics (of getting paid). ([ed] - that ignores the massive amount of content from people who don't care about that). Geller: people want choice, so it's not that simple. Sifry: It's not about the technology, it's about the relationships.

Point I raised - opinions are no longer "scarce" - it used to be that only paid people could engage in punditry - that's no longer true. Sifry points out that now it's all about time and attention - how can we create tools that bring us more information on things that I want. Advertising is fine, so long as it's a message I'm interested in (amen).

A comment from the audience - you might want to get eyeballs back to your site, but you probably don't have that choice. People are "voting with their mice" and going for full content. You need to hit people where they are interested (which goes back to what Sifry was saying). Davidson still thinks it's a smaller audience so far. Elia points out that audio and video are more expensive now, and harder to justify "full text" for at this point.

A guy from USA Today points out that content is their business, so they can't show the full content in a feed. I understand his problem, but not all of the media is getting this right. The NY Times, for instance, hides their editorials and lets links to old stories disappear behind a paywall. The established media could be a lot smarter than they have been.

There's some worry about fragmentation of the audience, but Sifry points out that this isn't new - the proliferation of cable TV channels was a first step. Actually, Sifry just hit on a point I made awhile back (based on a Dvorak column and Searls post). The news media is losing readers due to their centralization of editorial control. Blogs can be - and are - more local.