RSS Gains Traction as More Publishers Offer Feeds

Content providers are deploying RSS feeds at a rapid pace these days. Industry insiders maintain that the adoption of the technology by major online publishers like The New York Times Digital, The Wall Street Journal Online, and CNET Networks indicates that RSS could have a major impact on media distribution. In fact, just this week, The Online Journal began offering RSS feeds for the first time, while NYTimes.com brought its RSS operations in-house and expanded the number of feeds to 27.

And yet, most Internet users still have no idea what RSS is. Those that do, claim it will transform the way people consume media.

RSS, or Really Simple Syndication, is an electronic feed that sends content to recipients who proactively choose to receive it. Users choose the feed they want from content providers, and then receive the information through RSS readers, or aggregators. RSS readers regularly scan sites to receive feeds in real-time, thereby providing continuously updated content from each site.

RSS is separate from the e-mail pipeline, and since it is 100 percent opt-in, there is no way for a user to receive an RSS feed he or she did not request.

"From a business perspective it's a way of enhancing and expanding communication with your customers," said Michael Gartenberg, VP-Research Director, Jupiter Research. He added that it's a great way to monitor a company, by essentially "subscribing" to its Web site.

Royal Farros, chairman and CEO of MessageCast, a marketing solutions company specializing in real-time networks, adds that RSS is really "a triggering mechanism," a frequently updated file that waits for people to reach out and read.

"Before the end of the year, every major content site will deploy an RSS feed," said Tom Barnes, CEO of Mediathink. "RSS equals more efficiency and less work." That means less work for programmers, less work for content providers, and less work for consumers. But as Barnes noted, it will probably mean more work for marketers.

RSS poses the biggest threat to e-mail marketers. Both Farros and Barnes note that RSS feeds eliminate the need for blacklists and spam filters because users have total control over which messages they receive. "Once you get into the RSS world, you don't have direct control over marketing to your customer-the thing marketers are most afraid of," said MessageCast's Farros.

Jupiter's Gartenberg said that RSS represents an opportunity for marketers, but he too, notes a downside, "right now it's only a one-way communication."

According to Farros, the industry is spending too much time looking for answers to a problem (spam), that is taking years to fix and one that, to date, has largely affected the efforts of legitimate e-mail marketers. He adds that people expect e-mail to work as seamlessly as a telephone conversation, but nearly 40 percent of all in-house lists are blocked. "Today, more and more people are saying, 'I'm just not getting your message,'" he said.

For Farros, RSS and other platforms that use real-time networks are a logical alternative to e-mail marketing. "Here we have a near ubiquitous network that can handle all traffic in a totally authenticated, opt-in, anonymous manner," he said.

However, Mediathink's Barnes believes that the marketing implications of RSS will move beyond e-mail marketing, once the technology reaches critical mass. The first step for marketers, he says, will be to make sure their ads show up when RSS readers download their publishing partners' content feeds.

Barnes adds marketers will need to heavily invest in generating more content themselves, without piggybacking on their content provider partners. In order to retain customers in an RSS world, advertisers may have to produce their own content and send it out via feeds. This will require marketers to refine their tracking technologies and get even more granular, with a better understanding of each individual consumer. Should there be an RSS revolution, he said that it will inevitably require more research on the part of advertisers.

Soon, Barnes says advertisers may need to figure out a way to advertise on RSS readers via interstitials that appear before content is loaded after users click-through to available headlines.

RSS remains in its infancy. In fact, according to the Radio Community Server, which measures the Top 100 Most-Subscribed to RSS Feeds, Wired News is the most subscribed-to feed with a mere 3,128 subscribers.

Several challenges loom for the RSS industry, including resolving how people will pay for RSS feeds. There are also questions about bandwidth. RSS readers continuously troll sites for updated information, and for smaller publishers that don't have several servers, this can cause information to slow down or crash.

According to Farros, the RSS revolution will evolve as consumers continue to take control of their media choices and environments. "Its kind of like Napster, only legal," he said. But even Napster took a little while to catch on.

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