Marketers are starting to see RSS
The current issue of CMO has a small piece on RSS - and immediately spots the key marketing angle:
Well, does the idea of millions of eager eyes with lots of spare time (and maybe some spare cash) viewing your ever-updated online information sound appealing? "RSS subscriptions allow the customer to get information when it becomes available, not when they think to ask for it," says Harold Check, a noted RSS expert and former managing editor of Yahoo. "It not only fulfills the basic contract between company and customer ( We want you to know what we have to offer), but it entirely sidesteps the very negative experience of a customer asking for information and not getting it."
The key is that it allows people to get information as it becomes available, and leaves all the decisions about contacting a vendor in the consumer's hands. It's clear to me that these marketing mavens don't really get it though:
Feeds dedicated to individual companies - even the likes of Microsoft and Oracle - don't rank in the top 50 most popular sites (at least according to recent totals from RSS consolidator Syndic8.com). And after the top 10 or so, the number of viewers drops off fast. So using RSS in conjunction with your own site to push new products probably isn't going to work. Worse, feed readers generally list simple headlines and summaries of stories. If your site depends on banner ads, for instance, a serious RSS effort might ultimately undermine any efforts to get more people viewing it. (Getting your product mentioned on one of the more popular RSS-feeding blogs or Web hangouts, such as Slashdot, however, will pretty much guarantee a flurry of visits to your site.)
Hmm - they might ask Scoble about how Channel 9 has been working out for MS. If you produce compelling content for people, they'll come and read it. If all you produce is the same old brochure-ware site, then you'll starve. There's no "magic" here - it's all about content. Ironically enough, the same issue has an article on blogs and how they can help raise visibility...
