Sphinn - 10 Reasons Why RSS Beats Email

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10 Reasons Why RSS Beats Email

Went Hot: August 14, 2007 - 1:00 pm
Posted By: bwelford 427 days ago
Topic Type: News Story (Jump to http://blog.clickfire.com)
Category: Other Online Marketing

When I read this, I just had to Sphinn it. The cause is so important. I don't like 10 Reasons lists but these are very powerful. If it had to be condensed to one, it's that Email newsletters and messages now come buried in a mound of spam. The RSS News Feed tells you that some website you rate highly has just (within the last hour) added something new. What more could you want? This is a theme that's certainly worth Sphinning. Let's do it.

8 Comments

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Comments

from vanessafox 427 days ago #

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Are there good numbers on the adoption of RSS vs. email? I know that we all use it, but what about the general consumer population?

from bwelford 427 days ago #

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I've not seen any good numbers. However who knows, it may be the movers and shakers in any market sector who are the early adopters on this one. If so that's an important target group and RSS gives you a privileged access to them.

from qwerty 426 days ago #

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I guess the trick is to offer both, but recommend RSS, then watch and see how many subscribers you get for each medium.

But there is one thing about email I prefer: it's much easier to save and archive the messages locally. You can stick a label or a star on a particular item from an RSS feed, but then you're depending on the item staying put on the owner's server.

from garyprice 425 days ago #

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Over the years I have posted a couple set of numbers. It's been my personal experience that these numbers have changed all that much since they were released.

I can say with ResourceShelf we do offer constant updates via RSS and a weekly email reminder. I have heard from many people that they need the email reminder to read the RSS. In live presentations to "non-geeks" very few use or know about RSS. I have also been told by several people that they gave up on RSS when they had massive amounts of feeds coming in.

Again, go with qwerty, offer both.

From SEW: Survey Results Show Most Americans Have No Clue About RSS (2005)

http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/050720-171010

August 2005

Nielsen//NetRatings: 11% of Blog Readers use RSS

http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/050815-223627

A year ago some numbers posted on Business 2.0 showed that the stats hadn't changed much. However, I can't seem to access the post.

from type0 425 days ago #

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Excellent Sphinn. I spoke about this awhile back:

http://www.mjswebsolutions.com/blog/index.php/2004/10/25/the-end-of-spam-viruses-even-email/

I can't wait for the day when the concept is a reality.

Maybe Dave Winer will come up with something. ;-)

from Justin-Goldberg 425 days ago #

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Wouldn't it be cool if only yahoo mail had an rss feed, allowing me to read it in gmail.

Or all emails providers had rss with auth?

from asnider 425 days ago #

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RSS is superior to email for many purposes, and this article really nails it.

However, as others have already said, the key is to offer both email and RSS subscriptions. A lot of people still don't know about RSS.

I work in a fairly tech savvy business, and some of my co-workers didn't know what RSS was until I explained it to them.

from docholiday 410 days ago #

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RSS and Email both have their places in Net marketing. You just have to be smart about where and when to use each.