RSS Future - Distributed marketing and the solution to spam?

A perfect storm has emerged for marketers using email and dm vehicles in particular. The 2 main factors are:

• unsubscribe numbers are on the increase due to spam and poor targeting
• the new EU directive moving to an opt-in contact basis (the rest of the world will surely follow)

By definition, RSS is an opt-in form of news/content 'delivery'. A growing number of news & content providers and most bloggers offer (and consume) RSS feeds. The provider has the potential to make content as customisable as they want, and the consumer can decide 'what', 'who' and 'how' they consume. Pull rather than Push, defined by the consumer.

So is RSS the future opt-in-friendly solution to spam? Could be. I'm seeing more and more developers (the early adopters) reporting that they have unsubscribed to newsletters, and instead consume RSS feeds. This trend could become widespread depending on how easy it becomes to do (already there are add-ons for extending email clients to consume RSS, Newsgator as an example).

Related links:

RSS: A Medium for Marketers (Clickz.com)

Interesting discussion regarding RSS' marketing potential: The original Adverblog 'Rss and marketing... a new perspective' article is here , with a response at Dana's Weblog here.

Will RSS kill the e-newsletter? (XMLMania.com)

Look Out, Outlook: RSS Ahead in 2004 (Zdnet)

Comments

• Anonymous
  December 24, 2003
  The problem with that is most professional content producers, such as magazines, do not make money off of subscription charges. Their profit is a function of any subscription charges plus advertising, with advertising being the majority.
  
  RSS feeds currently cut out any advertising, which is why people enjoy them so much. For the content to remain, advertising will work its way into RSS feeds. Otherwise, content production will no longer be profitable, and we will all lose the benefits of the publication.

• Anonymous
  December 24, 2003
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  December 24, 2003
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  December 25, 2003
  SBC, Thanks for the pointer to FeedDemon....it was v.easy to set up, and I like the interface...

• Anonymous
  December 25, 2003
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  February 22, 2004
  From Alex Barnett blog: "A perfect storm has emerged for marketers using email and dm vehicles in particular. The two main factors are: (1) unsubscribe numbers are on the increase due to spam and poor targeting, and (2) the new EU directive moving to an opt-in contact basis (the rest of the world will surely follow)."...

• Anonymous
  February 26, 2004
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  May 24, 2004
  I'm turning into a linkbot at the moment...

• Anonymous
  May 26, 2004
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  June 04, 2004
  http://irish.typepad.com/classroom

• Anonymous
  March 06, 2005
  Alex Barnett at Microsoft, has another great post on RSS and Marketing A perfect storm has emerged for marketers using email and dm vehicles in particular. The 2 main factors are: * unsubscribe numbers are on the increase due to...

• Anonymous
  May 24, 2005
  RSS eMail Autoresponder and RSS eMail is here!
  RSS Newsletters and RSS Publishing is quickly taking over the net.
  
  Right now 8% of internet users are using RSS feeds. When it hits 10% (critical growth) it will become THE Publishing tool.
  
  Find our more about RSS eMail and RSS Marketing @ www.rss-email.net
  
  Lars

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