Using RSS to listen and talk

MICROPERSUASION -- If you want to push a message out to active listeners, you need to take a page from Steve Rubel who listens to his RSS readers. It's a natural progression from first-generation Website developers who listened to their referrers. We need to listen to RSS news aggregation because traditional mass-mailings are dead. Ask Seth Godin, the super-permission mailer. We need the world to embrace news aggregators as “Tivo for the Web.”

Rubel explains, "We can now set up smart agents using services like Feedster and PubSub "to listen not only to what the bloggers media are saying, but also to what our audiences are discussing among themselves. RSS makes it easy for us to sift through this mountain of information and conversations when it’s most convenient for us and then apply it – all in real-time."

Rubel offers advice about "talking through RSS" that I wish Irish government press offices would follow:

• An opt-in distribution channel for press releases for those journalists who are using RSS readers
• A means to distribute key information to many on a given subject

Out of necessity, I have blocked most attachments. As a result, I'm getting on a trickle of info about government spending and policy initiatives. We have to educate the government lackeys on how to do information right.

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Steve Rubel -- "Using RSS to listen and talk"
Seth Godin -- Spammer
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