RSS as a Change Agent

To better understand how RSS is changing the way companies and individuals deliver and consume content on the macro scale, let us first remember how content is traditionally delivered and consumed.

People subscribe to e-mail newsletters or e-mail update services to get content delivered directly to their inboxes. It's (or better yet, was) convenient, easy and simple.

But, in order to get content delivered to their inboxes, they must first reveal their e-mail addresses, which are basically ID numbers that allow anyone who knows them to send whatever they like to these ID numbers.

In a perfect world people would only receive the content that they requested and only from the people that they wanted to hear from --> the people that can provide them with relevant information, specific to their interests and current situation.

But this is not a perfect world.

Since the "ID number" allows anyone to contact anyone, people have very little control over who actually does contact them and what information they send them.

In a way, it's a "perfect democracy" that just doesn't work. Because, in reality, we don't want to hear from everyone that thinks they have something to say to us. In reality, we only want to hear from a very limited circle of people and receive very limited types of content categories.

But, for the sake of the argument, let's presume that we are actually getting information only from the people that we want to hear from. Unfortunately these people still have the power to send us whatever information they like, not just the information we want to receive from them. Basically, they have the power to push any kind of content to our e-mail inboxes.

We can either unsubscribe, if they give us this opportunity, from their e-mail service or continue to receive their content as it is. One of the problems with this is that unsubscribing can be a rather tedious process, definitely not a two-click affair, and some people even doubt that the unsubscribe feature will actually work.

This is our reality.

We are, more or less, forced to receive content we mostly don't want to receive, and for the content that we do want to receive, we also have to put up with much information we don't want to get.

This is the "democratic" nature of e-mail and many marketers and publishers have been abusing it for a long time. It's not the medium's fault of course; it's just that people are who we are.

And now enter RSS in to the picture, a "new" channel that users need to proactively add to their content consumption mix, including proactively adding content publishers they want to hear from, thus eliminating the "democracy" of e-mail, conversely, limiting our "content diet" only to the publishers we actually want to hear from.

But there's more.

One of this channel's characteristics is that it's extremely easy to remove content publishers you don't want to hear from.

Now, all of us have very limited time for online content consumption. It's always been this way, but with e-mail content consumption we usually don't even bother ourselves with unsubscribing from the content we don't want to receive, since we already receive hundreds of SPAM e-mails per day anyway, so why bother with unsubscribing from a few e-mail lists and the few additional e-mails we receive per week. Most people don't even know anymore what they subscribe to since they have no unified view of all of their e-mail subscriptions.

However, this new channel, RSS, is quite different. Here you have an exact view of what you subscribe to. You see exactly which content publishers are on your list and you can remove any of them immediately, without even a second thought. It's quick, easy and comfortable.

Compare this with the relative difficulty of unsubscribing from e-mail lists, and even with the e-mail mindset where you just don't care to be bothered anymore with unsubscribing, since you don't have a view of what you subscribe to anyway.

This new channel takes the democracy right out of content delivery for publishers and brings it back for end-users.

If RSS content publishers want to keep and grow their readership, they cannot afford to do the things they could have easily been doing with e-mail.

Instantly, all the content needs to be highly relevant. You can no longer afford to send out blatant advertising messages or too much content that is of little interest to your target audience. If you want to survive you need to tailor all of your content specifically to the needs of your target audience.

RSS content delivery must in nature be more relevant than content delivered by e-mail.

RSS content publishers know this and most are providing exactly this, very relevant content, usually more relevant than what most e-mail publishers are doing, since they are taking in to consideration the specific characteristics of the channel.

And there are more publishers like this every day. And eventually, even those that use both e-mail and RSS to deliver content, change the way they are delivering content using e-mail. Their entire content production becomes more relevant to the user's needs.

It's quite easy to imagine the larger-scale implications of this.

Since more and more publishers are starting to offer more relevant content, that also raises the bar for other content publishers, even those not using RSS.

Our expectations are increasing every day. We are no longer content with mediocre content, we actually expect and even demand more relevancy.

And so the circle is completed.

Early RSS publishers have started raising our expectations of what to expect from internet content and have thus affected our internet content consumption habits. Users, in affect, are starting to demand more, which in turn forces other publishers to comply with the increased demands.

This process has just begun and still has a long way to go, but it has begun and will not stop.

Copyright 2005 Rok Hrastnik

Rok Hrastnik is the author of »Unleash the Marketing & Publishing Power of RSS«, acclaimed as the best and most comprehensive guide to RSS for marketers by leading RSS experts. The complete guide on RSS for marketers: http://rss.marketingstudies.net/index.htm l?src=sa12

---

How to Promote Your Blog for Free Online

11 Ways to Promote Your Blog1. Ping weblogs.com and other... Read More

24 Tips and Strategies on How Everyone Can Blog Right and Get Everybody to Read

By the end of 2004 blogs had established themselves as... Read More

RSS and Blog Marketing for Real Estate

Earlier this month, Realtor Magazine announced that they would be... Read More

Got Blog?

In 1999 I asked my friends and colleagues if they... Read More

Microsoft and Google Show Its Time for RSS Marketing

Many internet marketers are still wondering whether to start marketing... Read More

The Idiot?s Step-By-Step Guide To Blogging for Profit

Blogging is easy, blogging is fun. And what's more?it can... Read More

What Consumers Need To Know About RSS Feeds

Feeds are simple, really. What's even more exciting is that... Read More

5 Reasons Why Your Site Needs to Publish a News Feed

It seems like everyone is talking about RSS Feeds. They've... Read More

6 Ways That Blogging Can Save You Money

Even though I've had several personal blogs for years, I've... Read More

What Are RSS Feeds

RSS Feeds.RSS also known as rich site summary or real... Read More

Superbloggers Secrets

Blogs are extremely hot right now. Everyone is starting them,... Read More

Promoting Your Business Using Blogs

Internet marketing using blogs has quickly gained a lot of... Read More

16 Ways to Drive Traffic to Your Blog

You've got your blog set up and you've started posting... Read More

Why Blogs Have Become the Search Engine Optimization Equalizer

ALEXA WEIGHS IN...For those who are unaware of Alexa, it... Read More

Why You?re Not Blogging - And Why You Should Start Today

Those of you who aren't ready to wade into the... Read More

Start Blogging Now: 10 Reasons Why You Really Need a Blog for Your Business

1. It is perfect for creating a web presence for... Read More

Blogs: Todays Internet Diary and Marketing Tool

The popular blogger.com owned by Google, Inc. has been around... Read More

Displaying RSS Feeds on Websites

Displaying RSS RSS offers webmasters a unique opportunity to display... Read More

RSS is a Life Raft, Saving Us from a Sea of Useless Information

One of the main problems with the Internet these days... Read More

10 Reasons to Put RSS on Your Site!

RSS and Blogs are the topics of the moment. Seems... Read More

Top 10 Blog Writing Tips

Most of the "rules" about writing for ezines and newsletters... Read More

RSS for Bloggers

While syndication has many applications, we will deal specifically with... Read More

Blog Reflection

I still consider myself to be a blog writing novice... Read More

RSS is Not Only for Blogs

Contrary to popular opinion, RSS is not only good for... Read More

The Language of Blogs

I read over a lot of blogs each week, casually... Read More

For Wordpress users version 1.5 new feature ?Pages?

After many requests from wordpress users, the latest version of... Read More

What Is A Blog? - A Beginners Guide to Understanding Blogs

A blog is short for weblog, which simply means a... Read More

Business Blogs and Their Benefits

Blog is a medium for self-expression on web. Blogs are... Read More

7 Tips for Successful Blogging

So, you have a blog! Do you have traffic? Do... Read More

What Is RSS?

Recently I did an interview with a well known email... Read More

Bad Blogs Have Got To Go, Blogging Could Be Really Cool If Done Properly

There's a lot of blogs out there on the Web,... Read More

Utilize The Power Of Blogs To Market Your Business On A Budget

Budget marketing with blogs is one of today's top methods... Read More

Find Out How Microsofts Plans Could Make Your Subscribers Beg You for RSS Content!

Microsoft recently announced that they will be releasing a new... Read More