I haven’t done a “Comedy and Technology” feature since October when I covered Google Trends. Prior to that I covered Twitter back in August. So, we’re due.
RSS
I won’t get into how RSS works because the video below does it much better than I ever could. I will say, in general, the live comedy world is woefully under-utilizing RSS. There are two sides of utilizing RSS – content distribution and content consumption.
I don’t know of one comedy venue in the city that utilizes an RSS feed to distribute their upcoming line-up information. If I’m wrong, correct me, and I will add it to my Google Reader immediately. It would make sense for clubs to push this information out as soon as it becomes available in a technologically advanced way. Additionally, when line-ups and events are available in an RSS feed, the information becomes WAY easier to share by e-mail, on blogs, and on social networks. When things are easier to share, they become more popular. Welcome to Web 2.0, right?
Currently, the only place I can get a show feed of any type is from A Special Thing. The message board provides a feed for the shows that comedians post in the L.A. section. I, in turn, place that feed on this site (filtered for shows that I think people should go see. The share function in Google Reader allows me to filter).
I encourage every comedy venue to get on their horse and start providing their shows in an RSS feed. That means you…Improv, UCB, Laugh Factory, Largo, etc.
For comedians, RSS is the end all-be all for finding material. It will change the way you consume information. The days of George Carlin reading 8 news papers a day for material are over. Get yourself signed-up for Google Reader and start dropping your favorite website’s RSS feeds into it. You’ll be able to consume more information and create more jokes than you thought possible. Don’t wait. Watch the video below and get on it.
