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RSS as a Change Agent

by: Rok Hrastnik

Copyright 2005 Rok Hrastnik

To better understand how RSS is changing the way companies and individuals deliver and consume content on the macro scale, let us first remember how content is traditionally delivered and consumed.

People subscribe to e-mail newsletters or e-mail update services to get content delivered directly to their inboxes. It's (or better yet, was) convenient, easy and simple.

But, in order to get content delivered to their inboxes, they must first reveal their e-mail addresses, which are basically ID numbers that allow anyone who knows them to send whatever they like to these ID numbers.

In a perfect world people would only receive the content that they requested and only from the people that they wanted to hear from --> the people that can provide them with relevant information, specific to their interests and current situation.

But this is not a perfect world.

Since the �ID number� allows anyone to contact anyone, people have very little control over who actually does contact them and what information they send them.

In a way, it's a �perfect democracy� that just doesn't work. Because, in reality, we don't want to hear from everyone that thinks they have something to say to us. In reality, we only want to hear from a very limited circle of people and receive very limited types of content categories.

But, for the sake of the argument, let's presume that we are actually getting information only from the people that we want to hear from. Unfortunately these people still have the power to send us whatever information they like, not just the information we want to receive from them. Basically, they have the power to push any kind of content to our e-mail inboxes.

We can either unsubscribe, if they give us this opportunity, from their e-mail service or continue to receive their content as it is. One of the problems with this is that unsubscribing can be a rather tedious process, definitely not a two-click affair, and some people even doubt that the unsubscribe feature will actually work.

This is our reality.

We are, more or less, forced to receive content we mostly don't want to receive, and for the content that we do want to receive, we also have to put up with much information we don't want to get.

This is the �democratic� nature of e-mail and many marketers and publishers have been abusing it for a long time. It's not the medium's fault of course; it's just that people are who we are.

And now enter RSS in to the picture, a �new� channel that users need to proactively add to their content consumption mix, including proactively adding content publishers they want to hear from, thus eliminating the �democracy� of e-mail, conversely, limiting our �content diet� only to the publishers we actually want to hear from.

But there's more.

One of this channel's characteristics is that it's extremely easy to remove content publishers you don't want to hear from.

Now, all of us have very limited time for online content consumption. It's always been this way, but with e-mail content consumption we usually don't even bother ourselves with unsubscribing from the content we don't want to receive, since we already receive hundreds of SPAM e-mails per day anyway, so why bother with unsubscribing from a few e-mail lists and the few additional e-mails we receive per week. Most people don't even know anymore what they subscribe to since they have no unified view of all of their e-mail subscriptions.

However, this new channel, RSS, is quite different. Here you have an exact view of what you subscribe to. You see exactly which content publishers are on your list and you can remove any of them immediately, without even a second thought. It's quick, easy and comfortable.

Compare this with the relative difficulty of unsubscribing from e-mail lists, and even with the e-mail mindset where you just don't care to be bothered anymore with unsubscribing, since you don't have a view of what you subscribe to anyway.

This new channel takes the democracy right out of content delivery for publishers and brings it back for end-users.

If RSS content publishers want to keep and grow their readership, they cannot afford to do the things they could have easily been doing with e-mail.

Instantly, all the content needs to be highly relevant. You can no longer afford to send out blatant advertising messages or too much content that is of little interest to your target audience. If you want to survive you need to tailor all of your content specifically to the needs of your target audience.

RSS content delivery must in nature be more relevant than content delivered by e-mail.

RSS content publishers know this and most are providing exactly this, very relevant content, usually more relevant than what most e-mail publishers are doing, since they are taking in to consideration the specific characteristics of the channel.

And there are more publishers like this every day. And eventually, even those that use both e-mail and RSS to deliver content, change the way they are delivering content using e-mail. Their entire content production becomes more relevant to the user's needs.

It's quite easy to imagine the larger-scale implications of this.

Since more and more publishers are starting to offer more relevant content, that also raises the bar for other content publishers, even those not using RSS.

Our expectations are increasing every day. We are no longer content with mediocre content, we actually expect and even demand more relevancy.

And so the circle is completed.

Early RSS publishers have started raising our expectations of what to expect from internet content and have thus affected our internet content consumption habits. Users, in affect, are starting to demand more, which in turn forces other publishers to comply with the increased demands.

This process has just begun and still has a long way to go, but it has begun and will not stop.

About the author:
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:

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Tracking and Measuring RSS Feeds
by: S. Housley

Measuring and tracking RSS while a fairly simple concept, is really anything but. Unlike websites, RSS have the added caveat of potential syndication, making accurate tracking a challenge to anyone but the extremely tech savvy.

It is not unrealistic for marketers to want to know how many subscribers they have, which items in their feeds attract the most interest, or how many click-throughs are generated as a result of an RSS feed.

There are a number of 3rd party providers who focus on tracking the consumption of RSS feeds. Some solutions are rudimentary but likely sufficient for a small business testing the waters with RSS. Other RSS tracking solutions are more complex and while they can come close to being accurate, with syndication there is no solution that tracks with 100% accuracy.

Techniques Used to track RSS Consumption

Small businesses can view web logs to provide information on how many times a specific file (RSS feed) is requested. The logs and information is rudimentary but will give a basic sense of a feeds success. Many 3rd party tracking options have additional tracking information available.

Hosting

The most common method to track the number of feed accesses or individuals accessing a feed is to use a 3rd party feed host. Companies like FeedBurner essentially track feeds based on accesses. The downside to using a 3rd party like Feedburner, is that the url is a FeedBurner url and any PageRank or popularity associated with the url will benefit the feed host rather than the feed creator. Additionally, no distinction is made between unique views or syndicate feeds.

FeedBurner provides a free no frills service to host RSS feeds and they have been proactive in circumventing user concerns. Recently implementing a service that eases users concerns about migrating from FeedBurner. There is a 3 step process for users interested in migrating from FeedBurner's free service, implementing a permanent redirect, and url forwarding.

Details can be found at: http://www.burningdoorc.om/feedburner/archives/001251.html

Some publishers, who were concerned about lock-in or wanted to retain control of the domain and feed urls often resist a hosting service. The new program FeedBurner Partner Pro is not free, but allows for users to point to their own domain, retaining complete control of their feeds without sacrificing statistical tracking.

The downside to using a service like FeedBurner is that some filtering applications used on corporate proxy servers block feeds residing on FeedBurner or other free hosts.

Redirects

Companies like SyndicateIQ have more complex tracking solutions that generate unique urls for each subscriber. The tracking benefits to such a customized solution is obvious. Individual user habits can be monitored and any users abusing their access and inappropriately syndicating a feeds content can have their feed turned off. The downside of course is that the success of RSS is in a large part due to the anonymity. Users don't want their personal habits tracked.

Considering the venture capital interest in these 3rd party hosting services. It is important to note that their value is in the data that they collect. As with any 3rd party service, it goes without saying that publishers should read the privacy policy carefully, be aware of who owns the rights to the collected information, and how that information might be used. It goes without saying that the value in many of the free services currently available lies in their aggregate data.

Uniquely Named Transparent Images

Uniquely named transparent 1x1 graphics can be added to the description field of an RSS feed. Users can use standard web logs to see the number of times the image is viewed and determine the number of times the feed was accessed.

Companies Specializing in Tracking and RSS Metrics

Pheedo - Pheedo creates tools that enable individuals, organizations and corporations to promote, analyze, and optimize their weblogs and content.

http://www.pheedo.com

SyndicateIQ - SyndicateIQ's position in the content distribution chain provides clients a set of analytics.

http://www.syndicateiq.com/

FeedBurner - FeedBurner offers a full range of services to help you build awareness, track circulation, and implement revenue-generating programs in your feed(s).

http://www.feedburner.com

Each individual using RSS needs to make a decision of the extent and importance of the analytics they require. Realizing that any system they employ is not going to be perfect.

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