The Future of RSS is Not Blogs

notepage writes "Blogs vaulted RSS into the limelight but are unlikely to be the force that sustains RSS as a communication medium. The biggest opportunities for RSS are not in the blogosphere but as a corporate communication channel. Even now, businesses that were initially reluctantly evaluating RSS are beginning to realize the power and benefit of the RSS information avenue. The inherent capacity for consumers to select the content they wish to receive will be the driving mechanism for keeping advertisements to a minimum and content quality consistent."

Comments

Technology Or Message?

[DanielMarkham]

This is the old "push versus pull" marketing discussion. Are people tired of push communications, where their email inboxes fill up with garbage? Absolutely. But the real question is how to enact a "pull" distribution system that also sells stuff. The author seems to make the point for directly replacing newsletters and other corporate communications with RSS feeds. sounds good, but I don't think it's the complete picture. The basic problem is one of personality -- most corporate communications are about as personable as a TV commercial. Impersonal works great when you're mass-distributing the message, but from a pull standpoint I think the format and method of content creation will need to change, not just the technology. My two cents.

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Return Of The Son Of Push

[WombatControl]

Something about this reminds me of the bad old days of Active Desktop and Netcaster, "push" technologies that were supposed to revolutionize the way people worked on the Internet - and quickly faded into obscurity.

Corporate RSS can work, but it needs to be less annoying than push technologies were. The problem is that once RSS gets integrated into Longhorn everyone and the dog will use it just like "push" technologies - "pushing" annoying ads into everyone's faces and "pushing" the signal to noise ratio down into nothingness.

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[ScentCone]

keep advertising to a minimum? I think not. The best we can hope for is far more targetted ads...

You say that with resignation, like it's a bad thing. Would you rather that the people who actually produce all of the content that everyone wants have no way to cover the costs of their efforts, obtain health insurance, or go on a vacation once in a while? Everyone seems to want some ad-free, subscription-free paradise where they get all in the info and entertainment they could ever want, packaged up just for them, at no cost. It's not just that it's unrealistic, it's that it suggests a serious disconnect between the people that consume things and the realities of producing/distributing what they consume, and what it takes to allow talented, dedicated people to dedicate their waking hours to creating it. Targeted ads are probably one of the very best approaches to keeping the content producers happily producing without everything being subscription-based and/or DRMed past some threshold of pain. And the more targeted, the more likely it is to be the ideal mix for everyone involved.