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August 26 2003
Publisher's Note: Thoughts on RSS, Blogs and Other 'Hot New I first heard the term 'bleeding edge' back in the late 1980's when I was working for CompuServe. I can't exactly remember what it was applied to -- perhaps an early sales force management system we were trying to develop based on a pie-in-the-sky concept of what we could do with our technology (as opposed to what had actually be done). It is, obviously, a take-off on 'leading edge,' the term the management team was using to describe it. But I always think of it when a new technology emerges, especially one that gets tons of press and is heralded as the solution to all problems. Does it sound like I'm against RSS? I'm not. I'm just not yet sure whether it's the 'Beta' or 'VHS' of the e-mail world. Or, for that matter, the 'DVD.' Benefits of RSS are that it is permission based (readers must request your RSS broadcast, it can't be forced on people) and that it bypasses the spam filters and log-jam of spam that are an obstacle to being delivered and read. Also positive: it appears even at this early stage to have a low barrier of entry for the reader as well as for the sender -- something not necessarily true of all technology. So why am I still skeptical? First, RSS requires wide acceptance by the public to be a truly effective format to deliver news and information. (If you haven't read Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point, which addresses how ideas spread and become popular, I highly recommend it). Second, publishers need to embrace it. And third, those who are intent on using every channel they can to deliver unsolicited e-mail need NOT to be able to find a way to mutate RSS for their own purposes. On this last point, the responsibility lies with the publishers. It appears, based on my limited knowledge, that the publisher controls what goes over the feed. So if a publisher decides to send a mix of news and third-party promotions over the same RSS feed, you're stuck. Onto Blogs. There are some blogs I find very interesting -- like the ones done by Anne Holland of MarketingSherpa. They include all sorts of info that may or may not make it into her MarketingSherpa newsletters. Behind-the-scenes industry stuff and the like. This is, in my mind, the perfect use of a blog -- it's something we were talking about (minus the fancy name) back in the mid-1990's when we launched a paid website for Congressional Quarterly. A way to include additional info of value that didn't make it into the (at that time) print edition. At the same time, there are blogs that aren't useful. I won't embarrass anyone, but even some business blogs really miss the point. The point, in my estimation, is to match the content to the delivery channel. Blogs are great for informal observations, notations of things that are of interest but that don't necessarily 'fit' into a regular publication (e-mail or otherwise). I've spoken with too many people who just 'want to do a blog' for the sake of saying they do a blog, not because they have content that fits into the format. Which is exactly what I saw with e-mail newsletters a few years ago. They'd be carbon copies of print publications (lengthy, hard-to-read and redundant), or, even worse. just the headlines from print pubs that would direct you to the print publication for the full story (duh!). In my mind, the content is primary and the delivery vehicle secondary. The content is where the primary value is (although the delivery vehicle can add additional value). It's not about the technology, it's about the content. All that said, am I going to recommend that my clients add an RSS version of their newsletters? I'm not sure yet. Am I going to publish The Jennings Report in RSS format? Maybe. As skeptical as I am, it's hard not to jump in when the barriers to entry are so low. And the promise is so high.
Thanks for reading! I'd love to hear what you have to say. Feel free to contact me with any thoughts or questions about this publisher's note. |
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The
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