Trends Report: RSS Coming of Age: The Next Step in Online Direct Response?
by Sam Harrelson
RSS
(Really Simple Syndication) is a seemingly complex
technology despite its name. In truth, its structure and
application are quite easy to adapt. Given this ease of
adaptation along with incredible potential to reach
consumers, affiliates or new individuals interested in a
product/service/content, RSS has positioned itself as a
potential new “killer app” poised to answer the prayers of
online direct marketers looking for effective permission
based direct response techniques.
There has
been considerable press in recent weeks over the
technological failings of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer,
especially in the area of manipulation by ActiveX.
“Internet Explorer has come under attack in recent weeks not
just from malicious coders but also from CERT (the U.S.
Computer Emergency Readiness Team) and now, the most devious
opponent of all, RSS.
The latest exploits have leveraged IE's ActiveX and Active
scripting, and IIS (Internet Information Server) security
holes to unleash a wave of keystroke loggers and other
malware designed to
capture personal and financial data.
CERT has gone so far as to recommend dumping IE in favor of
Mozilla, Firefox, Opera or—on the Mac—Safari browsers that
are free of IE's dependencies. Alternatively, you can
disable ActiveX and Active scripting, with the kind of
diminishing results Larry Seltzer reports. And Microsoft
is hoping we'll just put up with patches until
Windows XP SP2 rolls around later this summer.”
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&u=/zd/20040708/tc_zd/131077
As this great piece points
out, fears and worries about Microsoft’s IE could help to
speed adaptation of new technologies by consumers to get the
content they have come to expect from the Web. RSS gives
consumers the option to subscribe to sites they want to
receive content from, and simply unsubscribe if they no
longer want the “feed” or content.
Couple this with the
continued deterioration of email as an effective tool of
reaching consumers or subscribers and RSS looks quite
appealing. In fact, companies such as
MessageCast are already pushing RSS as an
alternative means to reach consumers instead of email.
Permission, opting-in and open rates are all vanquished by
the adoption of RSS over email. Consequently, the entry
barrier is not high enough to keep most advertisers,
affiliates and publishers from taking advantage of the
platform. In fact, syndication of content on sites has the
potential
to renovate the affiliate marketing sector.
However,
can RSS compete with platforms such as email and
interstitials in gaining consumer response? That is the
main question and the jury is certainly still out on the
ability of RSS to capture some sort of profitable market
share. However, bloggers using RSS and dynamic content
delivered to consumers and individuals are
already starting to turn profits of their own. The
potential for advertisers to reach consumers in a completely
permission based manner without the stigma of spam or
pop-ups is reason enough for online direct marketers of all
stripes to investigate this promising application
immediately.
Sam Harrelson is the Co-Editor of the Digital
Moses Confidential. He can be reached at
sam@digitalmoses.com
