The RSS Promise for Internet Users
by Rok Hrastnik
Published on this site: July 8th, 2005 - See
more articles from this month...
The RSS promise for end-users is simple:
- a unified one-stop-shop to consume online content, without
having to visit dozens of sites every day to see what’s
new and without having their online subscriptions interfere
with their personal and business e-mail communications;
- complete control over their content consumption, including
a quick, easy and reliable mechanism to unsubscribe from
content they do not wish to receive;
- the ability to receive breaking news as it becomes available,
without having to wait for a monthly, weekly or daily recap
sent to their e-mail addresses;
- the certainty of actually receiving the content they
want, without the fear of it being stopped by spam filters
on the way;
- the ability to receive rich-media content directly to
their desktops, including audio and video content;
- the promise of providing the tools to make their lives
easier, including receiving critical content updates as
soon as they become available.
These points are not simple enhancements, but important advancements
that can fundamentally change how internet content is consumed.
Furthermore, these points themselves prove why marketers need
to start implementing RSS now!
To bring the point home, let us inspect some of the content
services already powered by RSS.
LIBRARY ELF: MAKING THE LIBRARY EXPERIENCE EASIER
http://libraryelf.com/
Library Elf helps you keep track of your library accounts
in one place and received reminders, such as what library
material is due, overdue and ready for pickup. Library Elf
uses the power of RSS to help you forget about your library
accounts and instead be directly notified of the changes you’re
waiting for, directly to your desktop.
INDEED: HELPING YOUR FIND THE RIGHT JOB
http://www.indeed.com/
Indeed.com provides its visitors with job seeking results
from hundreds of sites and then makes the search results accessible
via RSS feeds. Users can subscribe to individual search results,
pertaining directly to their search keywords to be notified
immediately new jobs are available.
FLICKR: SHARING YOUR LIFE IN PICTURE
http://www.flickr.com/
Flickr is the most popular photography management and sharing
service on the web, enabling end-users to upload their photos
and then make them available to their friends, associates
and family through a wide assortment of content delivery channels,
including RSS. By subscribing to individual Flickr feeds from
their users, everyone can have direct access to the latest
life experiences from their friends.
RSSCALENDAR: SHARING YOUR EVENTS
http://www.rsscalendar.com/
rssCalendar.com allows individuals and companies to share
their personal or group calendars with the rest of the world,
letting everyone that matters know of where and what they
are doing next, delivering this information via individual
RSS feeds.
COUPONS.COM: SAVINGS TO YOUR DESKTOP
http://www.coupons.com/
Coupons.com brings the best deals and coupons to internet
end-users, helping them save money by discounted shopping.
As of late, they also started delivering coupons through RSS
feeds, giving their subscribers direct access to their latest
offerings.
PUBSUB.COM: TRACKING THE WORLD http://www.pubsub.com
PubSub.com is an amazing service that allows you to track
practically everything going on around the world by matching
your keywords with tens of thousands of online content sources,
and enabling you to subscribe to your customized search results
through customized RSS feeds.
RSSAUCTION.COM: TRACKING YOUR PURCHASE INTERESTS
http://rssauction.com/
If you’re a regular eBay user, you certainly want to
keep track of new products available, which precisely match
your interests. rssAuction.com helps users keep better track
of eBay by giving them a tool to first create a comprehensive
list of product requirements and then delivering the search
result through an RSS feed. As soon as new products matching
individual interests appear, the user is notified of that
through his RSS aggregator, giving him the ability to start
bidding immediately and without having to visit eBay every
day to find the right products.
UPCOMING.ORG: KEEPING TRACK OF LOCAL AND SOCIAL EVENTS
http://upcoming.org/
From the Upcoming.org website: “Upcoming.org is a collaborative
event calendar, completely driven by people like you. Enter
in the events you're attending, comment on events entered
by others, and syndicate event listings to your own weblog.
As Upcoming.org learns more about the events you enjoy, it
will suggest new events you never would have heard about.”
FEEDBEEP: THE ULTIMATE “TIME-TO-INFORMATION”
TOOL
http://www.feedbeep.com/
Depending on who you are and your current life situation,
many content alerts are critical for you. If you’re looking
for a job, you want to know immediately when a new one matching
your precise interests is available, and so on. While RSS
brings this information to your desktop, that might not be
fast enough. Feedbeep.com takes internet content delivery
one step further, by empowering users to have their critical
content updates delivered from an RSS feed directly to their
mobile phones via SMS.
RSS EMPOWERS CONSUMERS
The one thing all of these RSS-based or RSS-empowered services
have in common is that they empower consumers.
They empower them by getting the content that matters to
them delivered directly to their desktops or online content
aggregators, but still giving them the power to unsubscribe
within moments of not being satisfied with the content they
are receiving.
Even more so, these services empower consumers to create
social networks and easily share their information with their
friends, family and associates on a large scale.
Rok Hrastnik is the author of »Unleash the Marketing
& Publishing Power of RSS«, acclaimed as the best
and most comprehensive guide to RSS for marketers by leading
RSS experts. The complete guide on RSS for marketers: http://rss.marketingstudies.net/index.html?src=sa11
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