Marketing 2.0

What Can You Do With RSS?

Robin Good offers an excellent overview of the many traditional and new applications for RSS technology. For example, it's the underlying technology facilitating media sharing sites such as Flickr and Jumpcut. There's lots more in Robin's summary.

Link: What Can You Do With RSS? - Robin Good's Latest News.

Google Goes Video

It's another sign than 2006 is shaping up to become the year of video. Web pundit Robin Good predicted it and now we have Google launching a video download service. This is going to be big. You will see all kinds of content currently available only on cable television or locked away in the archives somewhere suddenly available for download. Think of the marketing opportunity for studios and production houses to generate additional revenue on content produced and paid for in the past. The archives are going to be opened up like never before. I saw a sure sign of this the other night when I found an old episode of Dragnet for sale on iTunes. Two dollars per head for an episode that ran about 40 years ago. As Dire Straits might say, "Money for nothing and chicks for free."

Link: CNN.com - Google announces video�expansion - Jan 6, 2006.

IBM's Podcast Guidelines

Here is a sure sign that podcasting is catching on in the corporate world. IBM recently published guidelines for its employees who are involved in podcasting. There have been several publicized incidents of employees at other companies getting fired for their blogging activities so it's a good bet that we'll see similar incidents with audio content. This just points out the need for companies to have a policy covering all forms of online publishing that staff may engage in.

While this may feel like an infringement on personal freedom and expression, it's important to separate the organizational and individual voices. Like it or not, if you identify yourself as an employee of any specific organization, what you publish online will influence your organization's image.

I found IBM's guidelines interesting because some relate to legal issues like confidentiality while others discuss production value (set the bar high for audio production and content quality). Of course, IBM is interested in protecting their corporate image and brand equity (and why shouldn't they?). I complement them on being proactive. Good communication with staff and clear guidelines go a long way in avoiding messy problems.

This article comes courtesy of Business Blog Consulting, an excellent resource that I recommend.

Link: Business Blog Consulting: IBM's Podcast Guidelines.

RSS Marketing Plan

Here is a good article from Rok Hrastnik on using RSS technology in place of traditional e-mail marketing. With all of us battling and filtering spam from our e-mail accounts, RSS offers a good alternative - a permission based approach where customers elect to subscribe to your feeds. The advantage here is that content flows smoothly through an RSS reader or web browser rather than clogging up an in box or getting trapped in a spam filter.

Link: Your 7-Step RSS Marketing Plan.

Podcasting for Knowledge Management

Here's an excellent post from Jay Cross' blog on the use of podcasting to disseminate corporate knowledge. Jay references the practices at Cisco systems, where they have created a video-on-demand library of training and knowledge content that engineers can easily access. In many cases people prefer to download MP3 audio content to their iPods and go from there. Fascinating stuff and worth a read.

Link: Internet Time Blog: iPod, iLearn, iSell.

Can Podcasting be Profitable?

Podcasting has generated a lot of buzz lately, especially since Apple integrated the technology in iTunes. You can now subscribe to any number of Podcasts and download them to your computer or your iPod.

The hype is revving up — this will replace traditional media, radio is dead, blah, blah, blah. Yes, it's a cool technology but can it generate revenue? Is it simply another means for individual expression (no doubt valuable), but ultimately another excuse to spend more unproductive hours in front of your computer?

I think that podcasting can be a valuable tool for corporate communications. Company updates, customer support, technical guides, training — these are all potential applications that come to mind.

Whether podcasts can be sold by subscription is another matter. I'll leave that to others to argue. The smart people over at Wharton are thinking about this phenomenon. Here's a link to a recent Wharton article that discusses the business potential for podcasting.

Link: Podcasting: Can This New Medium Make Money? - Knowledge@Wharton.

Skype's Challenge

Strategy + Business recently published a good article on Skype, the peer-to-peer VOIP program that is making inroads in the corporate market. Skype has 35 million users signed up and is saving organizations and individuals a great deal on telephony costs. How much? Well, calls between Skype users are free. Free is pretty good. What's the catch? There are IT security concerns posed by all PTP programs as this article points out. Still, that hasn't prevented big companies like Accenture from using Skype. Give the article a read and consider whether Skype can be utilized in your organization.

Link: Skype%u2019s Challenge.

How to build a 10 minute podcast

Here's a nice overview from Eric Rice on how to build a podcast. He focuses on organizing content and not the actual technical tools you will need. This is a good guide especially for those just getting started or experimenting with podcasts.

Link: Eric Rice :: How to build a 10 minute podcast.

RSS and Marketing

Does it make sense to have a marketing-oriented website and not enable it with RSS? Not according to Robert Scoble who recently went ballistic over a new Microsoft site that did just that. When he asked his co-worker why there was no RSS capability, the guy informed him the site was for non-geeks. Didn't the guy know that RSS is the holy grail for the blog community? I enjoyed reading Scoble's reaction and can offer my own thoughts on this thorny issue.

If you are a marketer and you don't know what RSS is, you had better find out fast. It's simply the best technology available for your audience to download or subscribe to the content on your site. Yeah, I know, you want them to come and visit every day to see what's new. Guess what? Nobody has time to surf their 20 or 30 favorite sites every day looking for relevant content. RSS brings the content to them. Plus, when they click on anything that looks interesting, they are brought to your site for the full posting anyway.

But wait, there's more. RSS readers are all over the place and many are available for free. They are simple to use and quickly become a valuable tool. So valuable, in fact, the big web browsers are building RSS read functionality in their future editions. The next version of Mac OS X, code-named Tiger will feature Safari RSS. Microsoft is rumored to be adding RSS to its products. Firefox, the hot new browser from Mozilla, already offers RSS with its Live Bookmarks feature.

In short, RSS is one technology that lives up to its hype. It's quickly being integrated into mainstream web products and communications. If you a marketer you cannot afford to ignore it.

Lessons From the Net

Jay Cross has written a good article on the lessons we have learned from the Internet over the past 10 years. First, a few stats to whet your appetite. Ten years ago, 38 million people had Internet access. Now, a billion are online. In 1999, there were 23 blogs on the Internet — today, the number is 45 million! Click on the link to read Jay's pearls of wisdom.

Link: Internet Time Blog: Meta-Lessons from the Net.