Some products can only take the supporting role for ever. If you forcibly tried to operate it like a leading role, the outcome would be very bleak, and blogs are an example of this. RSS Reader is also of the same type. Therefore, it would be a terrible thing for the company if it operates only RSS Reader; and this is not only the case in China, but is the same all over the world, such as bloglines, Google reader, feedburner, “xianguo”, and “zhuaxia” are all still serving as angels, and income to them is still far, far away.    

The problem here does not come from the profit model. Some people said that RSS Reader didn't have any profit model or its profit model was not clearly defined. It is however not the case. It has a very clear profit model, namely advertisement, but its advertisement value has restricted its development. In order to upgrade its advertisement value, RSS Reader as a new medium must become part of the media. But the existence of media is not a pile of articles, but influence. To any media, influence is productivity, and only with influence can a brand name gradually come about, and eventually generate commercial value, gradually possessing optimum hematopoietic functionality.

 However, to establish influence in the times of mighty media is definitely not easy for RSS Reader operating independently. First of all, it’s the barrier of entry. RSS Reader is in such a profession where the barrier of entry is very low, in terms of either technology or funds, thus resulting in the situation where there is a mingling of good and evil. The more the competitors the fewer the users, each of them naturally has its own media value weakened, directly impacting on the appreciation of the advertisement value.

 Secondly, it’s the content. good content will have great influence on the people, and is an important element in establishing influence. But the content of RSS Reader is produced by the subscribers with too much junk content, and the overlap ratio of outstanding and other content is too high making it difficult to differentiate between the two, and to build up influence would thus be an uphill task.   

My view is that, there is only one way out for RSS Reader, that is, be the supporting role of the mighty media. That would be the same as blogs, either operating independently as a blog website, blogchina, or blogbus, and the portal blog would eventually come out as a winner, the reason being that portal is such a mighty medium possessing powerful influence which can penetrate the merchandise under it. Therefore, when RSS Reader becomes the merchandise under the mighty media, it can easily combine with the powerful advertisement brands and survive, possibly living well.