Taking Advantage of RSS

The number of folks who "get" the potential of RSS as a time saving information stream is growing, but the learning curve is still pretty high in the advertising world.

Here's a thorough and even-handed description of the current challenges facing RSS.

Advertisers can market their products through placing ads on news or blog feeds, or they can developer their own feeds for a direct connection to consumers.

Getting consumers to subscribe to a marketer's RSS feed is no easy task, but here's where it makes sense: when prices and selection of goods being offered changes frequently, and consumers tend to buy frequently.

If my local supermarket had an RSS feed (is that so far-fetched?) of the food that was on sale this week, I would definitely use it to build my shopping list as it would be more efficient than looking through the circular at the store. The other option would be "club" type entertainment products, such as books, CDs, DVDs or video games.

Blockbuster, BMG, or GameStop could send out weekly feeds to simplify finding and ordering the latest titles. RSS is more reliable than email, and easier than navigating a website.