Screw Email! Part Deux

In the interest of keeping my job :), let me qualify my last post. In push/pull marketing you are either sending out information to your customers/prospects or allowing them to choose the information that they want to receive (this may also be wrong so feel free to correct me). Both have their advantages as push marketing typically allows the marketer to craft the message that is received while pull makreting means that the end user has opted-in and perceives value in the information that they have requestd.

RSS feeds and feed readers are great as they allow you to receive information that you want (most of the time) in a format that is easy to read and scan through. The information is also easily sortable and does not get mixed up in your more crucial email. Email has many distinct advantages over RSS feed readers with the main advantage is that most people who are iether your customers or your prospects use it. The same can't be said for RSS as the Joe and Jane just hasn't caught on to it just yet. Before this takes place, email is still king and even when the RSS boat comes in, email may still be king becuase it's so frickin easy to use. It was hard enough getting grandma to email - imagine trying to teach her RSS? Most likely, RSS will become another marketing channel (as it already is) and will allow marketers some additional freedom to weave their magic and help push widgets out the door. For example, the first 50 people to subscribe to a feed get a $20 gift certificate at Apple.com. Even better - a secret RSS feed will hold the answer to an internet treasure map. Now we're getting creative! In the B2B world, wouldn't it be great if there was an RSS feed that let you know about all upcoming webinars in your area of focus? For example, if Google was promoting its new space shuttle (an add on for Google Earth), wouldn't it be great to know when the next live demonstration was going to be? I guess you could use email but RSS would be less personal and have more of a communal aspect. hmmm.... RSS may lead to less of a personalized experience and allow others around the world to better communicate to each other at the same time. More of a many to many relationship then the "ideal" 1:1 that we always hear about. This is definitely something to think about.

Any thoughts on where RSS will take us? What year do you predict the launch of the Google space shuttle?

Chad H.

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