A Skeptical Look at RSS: what to avoid doing

[mandy]

I'm a long-time RSS user. I love having Formula One news (congratulations to my countryman Jenson Button on his long-awaited first win) on my Yahoo home page. I also receive several blogs and podcasts via RSS. I'm regularly asked, "Should we be doing RSS?" In the majority of cases, my answer's no. That response may surprise you, but it's important to understand the question's subtext.

As early as 2003, bloggers and pundits were hailing RSS as the e-mail marketing killer. There are still people pushing RSS in exactly that manner: as an alternative to e-mail newsletters and promotions, one not prone to delivery problems, spam filtering, or blocking. It's in this context I'm typically asked about RSS, but I'm somewhat skeptical of RSS as an alternative to e-mail for a mass-market audience...

full article: http://www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3623103

Commentary on the article:

Harding makes the valid point that the user experience with RSS readers and aggregators is immature. He further contends that it's hard even for competent users to subscribe to feeds.

As someone who uses the Opera browser, I've been used to subscribing and managing feeds easily for some time. I freely admit to being in the minority here.

In his story, Harding allows that RSS has potential to complement an existing email marketing effort, rather than being an email killer outright...

full article: http://www.webpronews.com/insiderreports...eptic.html