• by Gavin O'Malley  @mp_gavin, September 14, 2005

E-mail services company Return Path has tapped FeedBurner to put ads in RSS feeds for clients that deliver content via RSS. Return Path, whose publisher clients include MSNBC.com and CNET, said it will focus at first on early adopters, such as technology and consumer electronics verticals.

Matt Blumberg, Return Path's chief executive and founder, said the time had come for publishers to start monetizing RSS. "As long as publishers have the right tools, RSS offers a great ad-supported model for the future of online publishing," Blumberg said.

In the last year, FeedBurner has gone from 10,000 feeds going out to 50,000 consumers to 100,000 feeds being sent to 5 million, according to Brent Hill, vice president of business development at FeedBurner. In other words, the firm's RSS subscriber reach has been growing by 40 percent per month for the past six months.

"As the user base for RSS expands, advertising to that base will become an important part of any integrated marketing plan," Hill said. "With this new delivery channel, publishers can opt to monetize their feeds, allowing advertisers to reach a consistent and growing audience with a fully 'permissioned' relationship."

Return Path's interest in RSS also gave needed attention and legitimacy to the nascent market, Hill added.

According to a Forrester Research survey in March, about 57 percent of marketers said they were interested in RSS advertising. Not only have Google and Yahoo! begun to experiment with ads in RSS feeds, but independent publishers are beginning to address RSS on their own. In July, the Washington Post's Web site debuted ads in its RSS feeds. MediaVest, NBC's media shop, worked with Washingtonpost.com on the program.