Lincolnite

Dear Editors, We want to thank the Lincoln Journal Star for giving JournalStar.com a long-overdue overhaul. The site is more attractive, easier to use, and filled with more content than before. We especially want to thank you for not following in the footsteps of a certain Omaha newspaper’s website, which requires a ridiculous online registration process (and a circumvention of that process by those of us who are turned off by it) in order to read articles. We wish to congratulate Online Editor Steve Smith and his crew for a job well done. The Journal Star has done a good job trying to maintain, or even increase, its relevance through blogs, podcasts, and the like, so it is odd that JournalStar.com still, even after its facelift, lacks RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds. RSS is a simple technology that would allow the Journal Star to push its content to new audiences at virtually zero cost. The fear, common among the "old media", is loss of site visits and ad revenue. That fear is unfounded and, in our opinion, completely backwards. Indeed, RSS feeds will increase the size and diversity of your readership. Even simple feeds with headlines and short summaries would expose your content to a wider audience. The majority of publishers agree with us: 76 of the nation’s top 100 newspapers offer RSS feeds (Link). Providing RSS feeds is a win-win situation. Your readers win yet another way to access your content, you win a wider audience with almost zero extra resources. It really is that simple.