The NewsGator Interview: RSS for Online Media and Branded RSS Readers

The NewsGator Interview: RSS for Online Media and Branded RSS Readers

In part 2 of the RSS interview with Greg Reinacker of NewsGator find out how online media can take advantage of RSS beyond publishing RSS content.

• Why should online publishers care about branded RSS Readers?
  
  
• Does it still make sense to provide a branded RSS Reader, especially with the wide adoption RSS is getting through Internet Explorer 7?
  
  
• What kind of value can publishers bring to RSS Readers?
  
  
• How can online media enhance the user experience through third-party content via RSS?
  
  
• Is visitor ownership still a possibility, or are services like MyYahoo! owning the game? How can online media compete?
  
  
• How can small businesses compete with large portals and large media sites?
  
  
• Does syndicating your content via RSS mean that you're giving up content?
  
  
• Is RSS becoming a significant traffic driver?
  
  
• How can companies profit from pulling together relevant content on a specific topic from third-party sources?
  
  
• Is there a difference in how summary and full-text feeds drive visitors to your website? When to use which?
  
  
• Best practices for re-publishing third-party content on your website
  
  
• Can you put ads next to re-published RSS content on your site? How to do it?

Click here to listen to the interview [MP3; 14 min.]

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.

Amazon Soft-Launches RSS Feeds for Product Tags

Just got a notice from Amazon (thank you) that they soft-launched RSS feeds for tags.

But first, how do their tags actually work?

• You can tag any product you like, including your previous purchases, with a keyword that best describes the product.
• Easily search and access products tagged by others, using the keywords you're interested in.
• Tags are also used as a way for Amazon to provide you with personalized recommendations.

The good part is that Amazon now added RSS capabilities to their tags, available through most tag pages.

• Subscribe to RSS feeds for the tags you're interested in, and get latest product releases that match these tags.
• Use the RSS feeds to display Amazon products on your website, using the appropriate tags, to earn affiliate commissions.
• Share RSS feeds for tags with your friends, as a recommendations vehicle.

More information here.

An excellent RSS e-commerce application from Amazon!

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.

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Embedded software, Wireless Net, P2P, Real time movies, and Medicare are some of the often heard phrases used to describe the next big thing on the ..

How Google's Acquisition of FeedBurner Will Change RSS Marketing

While the original plan for the RSS Diary blog was leaving on hiatus until the 2007 edition of the RSS Marketing e-book is done, the FeedBurner acquisition by Google is a story just to important to pass up ... especially all the implications it might bring into the world of RSS Advertising, and RSS Marketing as a whole as well.

So, yes. FeedBurner, a leading RSS metrics and RSS advertising company was just acquired by Google. Finally confirmed after weeks of speculation. I won't go into the details of the acquisition, as you can read more about it at the FeedBurner blog and just by following the news at Google News.

Here, we'll take a look at the implications this brings to the world of RSS Marketing. Just my predictions of course:)

1. RSS Metrics Will Finally Become Integrated With Web Metrics

In my book, all marketing/communications channels should be judged using the same metrics, such as conversions, cost-per-order, cost-per-subscriber, sales etc.

Although you could already do all of this with RSS, it required some tinkering.

But, as FeedBurner gets assimilated into Google Analytics, tracking the key marketing metrics should become a breeze, giving everyone access to crucial internet optimization data.

2. RSS Metrics Moving Closer to the Mainstream

With RSS Metrics being integrated directly into Google Analytics (which I'm sure will happen very soon), marketers might finally start actually measuring their RSS feeds.

Means better RSS Marketing, finally.

3. RSS Advertising Going CPC

Although FeedBurner is cautions to provide any details about how their CPM pricing model might change with the integration of their ad services into Google, I'm quite certain that RSS advertising will move the way of cost-per-click.

Means less revenues for RSS feed publishers, but better ROI for you, the advertiser.

4. RSS Advertising Moving Closer to the Mainstream

RSS Advertising will finally reach the mainstream, utilizing Google's massive advertiser database.

Prices will go up, and RSS content monetization will again start becoming the talk at industry events.

On the plus side, it also means Google will be able to attract more RSS feed publishers, meaning more RSS ad inventory for you. Your RSS advertising reach potential is about to explode, finally enabling you to reach the masses using RSS Advertising.

5. Trouble for Other RSS Advertising Companies

I love Pheedo, another leading RSS Metrics and RSS Advertising company, but the FeedBurner acquisition makes me wonder what's in store for them as Google starts pushing RSS advertising to their massive database of advertisers, especially as part of an integrated online advertising service.

It's certainly not the end of other RSS Advertising companies, but they might all soon see themselves transforming from RSS ad networks to RSS media planning & buying consultants.

Which would be a shame, especially considering the advancements in RSS Advertising developed by Pheedo.

6. Better Targeting for Google AdWords Advertisers (We Wish!)

Advertiser demand seems to be growing quicker than the inventory offered by Google.

The obvious choice for Google (in addition of course to increasing ad inventory through additional reach, media expansion through the content network, and expansion to new ad channels, like RSS and banner inventories) is to offer better targeting, for a premium price.

As a marketer, I clearly want to place my ads in front of the most relevant prospects. Keyword targeting is OK, but adding behavioral on top of that introduces another filtering element to my media planning, enabling me to really pin-point the users I want to see my ads.

• How about displaying search ads only to people who have already visited my website, but haven't made a purchase? Google AdWords and Google Analytics integration could offer exactly this.
  
  
• How about displaying search ads only to people that respond to marketing content banners on other websites? Integrating Google AdWords with one of the latest Google acquisitions, DoubleClick, can get us exactly this.
  
  
• Of course, I might also want to target my ads to people who are subscribed to X e-mail newsletter. What do you know, Google already has that information through their Gmail service.
  
  
• And then, how about displaying search ads only to people who are subscribing to other RSS feeds about RSS marketing? Integrating Google AdWords with FeedBurner would make this possible.
  
  
• Now just take these concepts, put them all together, and expand them to banner advertising, feed advertising and any other online ad channel Google develops/acquires in the future.

This may either be science fiction or Google's actual long-term masterplan. As more advertising budgets rush to the internet, available quality ad inventory will continue shrinking.

By introducing such targeting, integrating the metric and capabilities of all of their properties, Google could come as close as possible to total ad targeting, the holy grail of marketing we are all striving towards.

Things will get much more interesting ... and soon.

If I were an ad agency, I'd start developing a targeting department, focusing on targeted media buying.

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.

How To Make An Absolute Fortune in the Information Products Business by Shawn Casey

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Content can make or break a website. The power of the written word has been witnessed many a time. Products have become success stories, resumes trans ..

Quick RSS SEO Tips

WebProNews has a short summary from Amanda Watlington's tips for SEO optimization of your RSS feeds:

1. Subscribe to your own feed and claim it on blog engine Technorati

2. Focus your feed with a keyword theme

3. Use keywords in the title tag; keep it under 100 characters

4. Most feed readers display feeds alphabetically, title accordingly

5. Write description tags as if for a directory; keep them under 500 characters

6. Use full paths on links and unique URLs for each item

7. Provide email updates for the non-techies

8. Offer an HTML version of your feed

9. For branding, add logo and images to your feed

Now, let's add some tips from Stephan Spencer and continue with the numbering:

10. Full text, not summaries

11. 20 or MORE items (not just 10)

12. Multiple feeds (by category, latest comments, comments by post)

13. Keyword-rich item [title]

14. Your brand name in the item [title]

15. Your most important keyword in the site [title] container

16. Compelling site [description]

17. Don't put tracking codes into the URLs (e.g. &source=rss)

18. An RSS feed that contains enclosures (i.e. podcasts) can get into additional RSS directories & engines

And to round this off, a summary of my own tips [part 2 here] for using RSS to drive traffic to your site:

19. Get your RSS content (proactively) syndicated on other relevant websites [just the headlines and summaries of course]

20. Submit your RSS feeds to all the RSS search engines and directories

21. Use RSS to add relevant third-party content [again, just headlines and summaries] to your website to gain additional SE weight for your keywords

22. Use RSS to deliver all of your frequently updated content, not just for your latest blog posts

23. Whenever the content in your feed changes, ping the most important search engines and directories [yes, you don't need a blog for this]

Do you have more tips?

(a) Post them in the comments form below.

(b) E-mail me at info@marketingstudies.net and let's set-up an interview

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.

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Amazon.com Discussions and Reviews via RSS

I have to apologise to Amazon for missing on two of their RSS content delivery options, which I previously missed.

Sorry guys, and thank you for the heads up.

1. Product Discussions
Most Amazon.com product discussions are now available also as RSS feeds. An excellent way of keeping track of the conversations surrounding your favorite products, and certainly something more websites should implement ... especially those that provide content that people are pashionate about.

The first one that comes to mind is TV.com and their community show reviews.

2. Customer Reviews by Author
Like a product reviewer? Subscribe to their Amazon.com reviews RSS feed.

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.