Amanda Watlington, Principal, Searching for Profit & co-author, Business Blogs: A Practical Guide
Effective use of RSS is increasing....
- Lessons learned from RSS is that users can manage large amounts of information. RSS is the high octane fuel powering the blog revolution-- individuals can have hundreds of feeds
- RSS hard to understand since three different legs: RSS feeds, Aggregator services and Reader software for the user
- Tools for generating the feeds and aggregators are growing rapidly.
- Measuring feed circulation and advertising thorny.
- Mobile is the next frontier..life off the laptop.
- Surveys are RSS usage vary widely. Thinks the number of 27% of Internet users are using RSS unawares is the clearer picture--MyYahoo is an RSS reader.
- RSS is less than 5 years, 9 flavors. Podcasts: MyYahoo, iTunes, and rest of bunch.
- Typical external uses of RSS:

o Publishers & writers to communicate with their audiences
o Web content publishers use syndication of their content to increase readership, i.e. LifeTips for a tip a day, MedicineNet
o Sales: Overstock, eHobbies, Amazon, classified ads
o Customer Relations, i.e. American Express special offers
o HR: job and career information direct to candidates. Good starting is to use as a recruiting tool
o Public relations: press releases

- Organizations are publishers, creating reports, project updates
- Reduces email storage by as much as 100:1, avoids spam filter.
- Disney uses NewsGator
- Salesforce.com uses RSS readers to increase productivity.
- ING uses KnowNow for aggregation
- eCourier uses Traction Software instead of project management system.
- Amanda uses Bloglines for her personal reader.
- Standards are big issue, as well as validation of the feed to make sure it is clean.