Guerrilla Insight for Authors: Sports: The Ultimate TV-Online Hybrid Opportunity

Like any red-blooded sports fan, I just spent too much time watching a number of opening day college football games. Despite my love of sports and technology, I rarely see an opportunity to combine the two. Wouldn t you think there...

Leaving for Chicago, ACCM

I'm leaving for Chicago in about 3 hours for a week, where I'll be speaking on RSS and direct marketing at the ACCM conference.

If you're in Chicago and want to grab a coffee, drop me a note.

And I might be a little slow in responding to e-mail messages during this week:)

How Can RSS Power Your Internet Marketing and Publishing?
Find out more in the most comprehensive and best guide on RSS for marketers, as acclaimed by leading RSS experts, developers, marketers and publishers.
Click here and get the step-by-step guide to taking full marketing advantage of RSS.

Stephen Wildstrom: What s Your Point?
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Syndicate IQ Shakes the RSS Advertising World With Advanced Ad Serving

Syndicate IQ just announced their RSS ad serving platform that finally brings RSS advertising closer to what "traditional" online advertiers want.

What they're telling right now is:

a] They're able to insert RSS ads into feeds on a per-user basis, regardless of what article the subscriber is currently reading.

b] They can display different versions/formats of the ad, depending on the RSS Reader the subscriber is using.

c] Their RSS ad server integrates with "traditional" online ad servers, centralizing reporting and stats.

More coming on this soon, but until then also read Syndicate IQ's view on the state of RSS advertising, which indicates why the above features are needed.

PARTICIPATE: The 2006 RSS Marketing Survey

Would you like to compare your RSS marketing results with those of your peers?

Are you interested in the RSS industry average benchmark metrics?

Would you like to get top RSS marketing tips from those that are actually doing it?

Participate in the 2006 RSS Marketing Survey, share your own insights, experiences and data ... and then receive a free copy of the report with all the data to compare your numbers, as well as receive RSS marketing best practices.

Also, if you care to share your own RSS marketing case study, it will be featured in the 2006 edition of Unleash the Marketing & Publishing Power of RSS, critically acclaimed as the "best and most comprehensive guide on RSS for marketers".

For more information and to participate, please click here now.

And, if you can, please share this survey with as many marketers as you can, since that will provide us with a much better research sample ...

... and at the same time provide you with much better benchmark metrics, as well as more comprehensive RSS marketing tips and experiences.

Simply share this URL:
http://rsspoll.marketingstudies.net

Participate by clicking here now.

The Nofollow Attribute
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This Is Digital Cable 2.0?!
Insight Communications is the local cable monopoly, er, company. We use them for our cable TV and broadband services. I came home and found a letter in my mailbox from them touting their new InsightDigital 2.0 service. I was excited until...

Expedia Takes the Lead in Travel RSS Feeds

My greatest gripe against RSS marketing initiatives is that they're just poorly done.

You have a great company with an amazing product database that just calls for customized feeds ... and all you get from their RSS feeds are one-size-fits-all packages.

Really a waste. No one wants to receive updates on all US flights ... they just want to receive updates on the flights that really interest them. And here's the real power of RSS: bringing the most relevant content.

Expedia seems to understand that, at least based on their new RSS offering.

They allow you to customize your feed with Trip Type, your originating city, your destination and your package type.

Well, they could still do alot more, such as providing the option of selecting a price range, but it's a good beginning.

Expression Web Designer Beta
I had been anxious to check out Microsoft’s new Expression Web Designer, not because I had any issues with FrontPage 2003, but because I like playing with new programs. I was thrilled when I received the download notice for the initial private beta, which they have since offered to the general public. I am probably not [...]

Important: 2006 Unleash RSS Preview for Existing Customers

Just a quick update for existing Unleash the Marketing & Publishing Power of RSS customers ... if you haven't received the message yet.

We just released the preview of the 2006 edition, with the first two sections. The preview (and the full version, once it comes out) is available to you for free, of course.

Just drop me an e-mail at rok.hrastnik@marketingstudies.net --- if you haven't received it yet.

And you'll certainly want to do so, since this isn't simply an upgrade, but a whole new e-book, with more easy-to-follow RSS marketing instructions than ever before.

The Long Tail, by Chris Anderson
I was skeptical when I picked up The Long Tail a few weeks ago. I figured I already read Chris Anderson s original Wired article, I get it, I buy into it, and so what s the point of reading an entire...

Use RSS To Increase Your Traffic Now, Part 1

Online visibility and online traffic are, quite naturally, of paramount importance to everyone and anyone marketing or conducting business online, period.

While RSS will not perform as your key tool to improve online visibility and generate more traffic, its importance for helping you do so cannot be disputed.

It will help you:

increase your traditional search engine rankings;
improve your online visibility by making your content available where people are increasingly searching for new content, such as RSS search engines and content aggregation sites;
drive traffic from other websites covering your topic, by helping you make your content available at these websites more easily.

Deliver Your News to Where It's Searched For: Generate Traffic From RSS Search and Content Aggregation Sites

The fundamental media shift is not only happening between offline and online, but within online itself as well.

Just a few years ago the search engines, the largest portals and news sites, were more or less the central hub of where online users got their online information. They still are today, but are now challenged by the growth of new online search engine and content aggregation website categories.
It's quite simple.

Go to Google, Yahoo! or MSN and do a keyword search. What you get are somewhat the most relevant results for what you're looking for but without a timestamp. Search engines provide results based on universal relevancy and not on recentcy.

But what if you're looking for the latest relevant content, instead of just the most relevant content?

Enter the news engines, content aggregation sites and RSS search engines. Instead of providing results by universal relevancy, these sites provide results by actual recentcy, with of course a better or lower level of relevancy.

The point is that these websites are starting to become the central hub of searching for news online and latest content online.

Google and Yahoo! know it too their own news engines are among the top of breed.

But what if you don't want to search for specifically the latest news or the latest general content, but just want to search for the latest blog posts pertaining to your topic of interest?

Enter blog search engines, which will only return results from blogs. And Google has one as well, although this one is not on top.

And so on

Why this matters to you?

If you want your latest content to be found where people are actually searching for the latest news and other latest content, even video and audio content, you need to start using these new search and aggregation site categories to increase your reach and attract new traffic traffic that is interested in what you have to say right now.

And the RSS connection?

Most of these new services, although not all, rely on RSS to receive the latest content just as it becomes available and then offer it to their visitors.

In many cases, RSS is the key tool that will get you indexed and then found and read, being used to get your content from your website to the service, which will then make it available to the world.

And additionally, you can expect to receive extra traffic from RSS directories, used by people who are proactively searching for new RSS feeds to subscribe to.

Please Share the RSS Marketing Survey

Please help us make the RSS Marketing Survey as comprehensive as possible. All participants get the full survey report, and all the key data will be shared publicly.

1. Please take a few minutes and participate by clicking here.

2. Please share this URL (http://rsspoll.marketingstudies.net) with as many people as you can. Post it on your blog, send it out in your newsletter, mention it to your RSS peers ... :)

Really, the more data we get, the better results we'll be able to provide to you.

The goal of the survey is to research the RSS marketing landscape, collect top RSS marketing case studies and best practices, and find which key factors make successful RSS strategies successful.

BTW - the survey is getting alot of support from many marketers, such as Christopher Knight, RSS Ray, Lee Odden and may others (full list will be published after I return from Chicago).

And today we've just been covered by MarketingSherpa as well:
"If you've tested offering RSS and have any results to share, author/researcher Rok Hrastnik is seeking your input for the second edition of his report on the topic. We like Rok -- he's a genuine and enthusiastic researcher on the topic and worth supporting so the whole community can learn together."

Great thanks to everyone that's helping make the survey a success!

Know Your Target Audience
Equally important with knowing your target audience is finding ways to let your target audience know you as a person. Many times when we run an online business, we forget the power of talking with our target audience. Handing people a business card in casual conversation is a common courtesy, but it is unlikely [...]

The Risk of AdSense Revenue
Generic advertisements such as Google AdSense absolutely do not belong on a professional business website. No matter how you look at it, it will not help improve your business and may very well have a devastating impact. Is it really worth the risk? Those people who have no clue what Google AdSense is, will likely become [...]

Guerrilla Insight for Authors

Sunday, September 10, 2006

Sports: The Ultimate TV-Online Hybrid Opportunity

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