Just as blogging has brought power to the people to create their own content, RSS feeds are about to bring power to the Internet users - the consumers of the media. RSS feeds give people the ability to sift and select their own content - in effect creating their own online 'newspaper', with the stories they're interested in.
Microsoft has created waves by announcing that their next operating system (Longhorn), and the next version of Internet Explorer, will incorporate the ability to handle RSS feeds. This will have the effect of making RSS mainstream.
At the moment only about 5 percent of Americans subscribe to RSS feeds - see January's survey by the Pew Internet & American Life Project - that's about 6 million people.
Microsoft says that in the next version of Internet Explorer, a user who visits a page that has an RSS feed will see a notification button light up on the browser. Clicking a plus symbol in the browser will subscribe to that feed, and the feed will go on an internal subscription list in Longhorn.
But RSS is about more than just news and information, Charlene Li of Forrester Research has been working on a report about non-blog uses of RSS for marketers. There are a number of interesting ideas she's found, and that other people have suggested:
Purina has feeds for updated Web content (e.g. dog and cat care advice); coupon or bargain sites like Slick Deals and TechBargains also have content feeds; Deals on the Web (dealsontheweb.com) - a site for bargain hunters looking for consumer electronics - has feed for their latest finds; Amazon has details of it's latest deals. There are examples of PR uses of RSS - for example Apple has its PR feed on RSS - a great way to distribute press releases. And travel companies seem to be up there with both Continental Airlines and Delta Vacations having RSS feeds.
So RSS goes mainstream? Though a couple of issues strike me about the corporate communication impliactions: firstly it provides a great way for a corporation to sidestep the established distribution channels and get their message out there in way that doesn't allow it to be messed-up or mangled in the disseminatino, but secondly, whereas blogs allow for a two-way dialogue with consumers, the use of RSS feeds seems to reduce the meduim to the old 'transmitter' and 'receiver' model of communication.
Matt
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