RSS Deconstructed
ClickZ Executive Editor Rebecca Lieb moderated “RSS Deconstructed” with perspectives from a researcher, agency executive, marketer, and email solutions provider. Rebecca gave her personal take clearly: if you’re looking to reach her, RSS is a great way to do so. She subscribes to the press release feed of every company she covers that has one.
Jon Gibs, Nielsen//NetRatings Director of Media Analytics, opened up the discussion saying that according to survey data, RSS ads are moderately irritating, but active RSS users are less irritated than non-users - a good sign. He then focused on the group that is irritated. Those annoyed by RSS cite a number of reasons, such as that it’s “pure,” that it’s an escape from the “old internet to the new internet,” and that it’s just more advertising which they’re already sick of. However, there was still some acceptance for the ads to support the content. His conclusion: “No, consumers don’t hate RSS advertising. They are resigned to RSS advertising and the more they use RSS the more likely they are to become accepting of it.”
Next up: Avenue A - Razorfish GM/VP Mark Stephens. He spoke about the trends from consumer and advertiser perspectives. “It’s not always about the data,” he said, noting that some applications such as podcasting are more valuable than available metrics alone will tell you. Stephens kept stressing the contextual nature of RSS ads, and added behavioral targeting can be layered on top. The highlight were the actual examples he showed - namely with NYTimes.com and CondeNet. It emphasized this is real, and these ads aren’t just going on the “cat blogs” that Seth Godin has talked about - the blogs by people talking about their personal lives.
Batting third was Scott Wilder, Intuit Group Manager, to talk about the challenges users have in making sense of RSS and online community features. He said, “We don’t even call it RSS - we call it web feeds.” That might be a step up, though would a user who doesn’t understand RSS really have a better sense of what a feed is? Feed is what my father used to give to chickens on a family-owned farm when he immigrated to the US in 1951. I don’t think my dad would readily associate it with a content distribution mechanism. Wilder’s key take-aways: know your users and their use of web technologies. Use RSS for acquisition or retention. Syndicate your content. Understand how it’s part of the marketing mix. Treat it like a traditional direct marketing tool and track the heck out of it. Lastly, learn, refine, improve, and learn some more.
In the cleanup spot, Rebecca Lieb introduced an email guy, Josh Baer, CEO of SKYLIST Email Solutions. He compared RSS to email, or more precisely, to SMTP. The bottom line: “This isn’t RSS vs. email. Both RSS and SMTP are used to deliver the same content which looks just like any other email message.” Advantages of RSS: reliable unsubscribing, free from spam and viruses in this early adopter phase, and more consumer control over viewer time. Disadvantages: it’s generally not viewed in the inbox, tracking and ad serving is complicated, and there’s less sender control over viewing time. My take: only the second matters. It doesn’t matter where RSS feeds are viewed, and marketers have to get used to the lack of control.
Then Baer got into RSS myths. These included RSS being spam-proof and phishing-proof. He went out of his way to cite hypothetical scenarios where RSS could contain spam and phishing schemes, but his arguments here seemed to cave under their own wobbly logic. For instance, he said that RSS might be immune to completely unsolicited messages such as phallus enlargement remedies but marketers could still abuse it by sending too many messages or the wrong kinds of messages to consumers. The consumer control over their feeds will keep marketers in check; the comparison just doesn’t work here.
Lastly, Baer discussed the future of RSS. He said it has to be in the inbox. I just don’t get why. Why not the desktop, or the Google or Yahoo! homepage? What about via a browser-based toolbar, or even on an iPod or a mobile device? He seemed to be too stuck on what would be ideal for marketers rather than what’s really in the best interest of the consumer. Email remains a powerful marketing vehicle and it’s not going away, but the way the presentation went it just felt like a defensive counterpoint for the sake of nay-saying.
