RSS (Really Simple Syndication)
E-mail marketing and publishing, search engine marketing
and optimization, business blogging, internet advertising, digital public
relations, branding, e-commerce and others … all key elements of
a strong marketing mix.
And yet each of these is often regarded nearly as a separate entity, being
driven by different corporate roles and having its own proprietary set
of internet tools.
True, there are some tools being used for multiple purposes, but never
before has there been a single tool to improve, enhance and power all
of them, without prejudice.
But RSS is such a tool. Misunderstood by most marketers, overlooked by
many end-users, it has the potential to power the entire internet marketing
mix.
RSS has been around for some time – in the late 90s. In April 1997,
a talented programmer, Dave Winer, created a powerful software called
“Scripting News”. Since then, it has undergone numerous revisions
as well as input from various parties such as Netscape and Radio Userland.
Its name was changed from “Scripting News” to “RSS”.
RSS is here to stay … in a big way. You cannot afford to ignore
it if you want to remain in business. Your competitors will adopt it –
sooner or later.
Consider this – email was one of the earliest ‘internet’
application that was introduced. It started off in the academia/research
lab as a means of communication. The mass public quickly adopted it and
it was an instant hit. Hundreds of email-based applications were developed.
“Email marketing strategies” were developed and fine-tuned.
It has brought million of dollars to the early adopters.
Today, RSS is where Email was many years back. It’s a proven technology,
but not made popular yet.
RSS stands for “Really Simple Syndication” or “Rich
Site Summary”. It has a few other definitions as well, but that’s
not important.
What is important is that it is a simple technology that allows a publisher
to publish contents or information on their websites easily. The readers
and subscribers are alerted whenever new content is posted or updated
– automatically.
The subscribers and readers automatically receive it automatically whenever
new articles and news are available.
RSS also allows a publisher to syndicate its contents to other webmasters’
website, thus increasing the publisher’s exposure and reach.
The simple RSS explanation from the marketing point of view is that RSS
is a simple to use publishing tool for marketers and publishers, which
allows them to get their content delivered to end-users and other “content
consumers”, enabling marketers and publishers to better achieve
their business goals.
While achieving not more than marginal penetration, its usage is growing
with astounding speed. RSS is already used by the majority of the most
reputable media sites, by a satisfactory number of corporations and by
almost “all” bloggers.
RSS content is delivered through RSS feeds --- simple files structured
in a specific way [xml].
These files include some basic information about the RSS feed (such as
RSS feed title, logo, description, URL etc.) and the actual content in
the form of individual content items. These content items are individual
stories or articles (usually just descriptions of articles actually published
on the internet publisher’s web site), presented in a linear list.
As you can see, the feed example includes three individual content items,
presented in a linear list. Each item has its own title and description.
When an end-user clicks on one of these titles, he is usually taken to
the full-text version of the content item on the publisher’s website.
There are many different RSS versions, and many different ways in which
RSS feeds can be formatted, although all are more or less standardized.
For instance, RSS 2.0 feeds can provide full-text content items, and so
on.
In order to read your RSS content and subscribe to it, end-users need
an RSS aggregator.
RSS aggregators are special tools that can take an RSS feed and display
it to the end-user. They come in many different forms and flavors, but
the most popular are desktop applications and RSS aggregation Web services.
In the case of desktop RSS aggregators, end-users need to download them
to their computers and install them there. RSS aggregation Web services
on the other hand are websites where users can create their own accounts
and then use those websites to view RSS content directly from their Web
browsers.
After installing an RSS aggregator or registering at a web-based RSS aggregator
web service, the user needs to proactively add the link to your RSS feed
in to the aggregator to view your content.
Every time you update your RSS feed by adding new content items to the
RSS file, the user is notified of that through his RSS aggregator, making
the content immediately available to him, without it having to face any
SPAM filters and other barricades on the way.
With RSS, you can publish and update your subscribers with the latest
news, updates, promotions, etc … without the associated problems
above. You can use your Blog to update the RSS feeds for you. Your subscribers
will then receive the updates in their RSS reader software (RSS aggregators)
automatically.
RSS Aggregators/Parsers:
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