Below the Line

Trend spotting: Spotify

Last night I went to a Digital Lounge event with Spotify's UK Sales Director Jon Mitchell. Spotify is a streaming music service which was founded in Sweden in 2006 and has attracted one million users. The free service is also available in Norway, Finland, the UK, France and Spain. It's premium service is available elsewhere for £9.99 per month.

According to Mitchell, Spotify offers a "legal alternative to piracy". In fact, Mitchell boldly stated that their only real competition is music pirates, although The Independent has stated that they have "declared war in iTunes".

Spotify launched in the UK in October 2008; the UK has quickly become their biggest market with 10,000 people per day signing up for a free account. Unlike many "next big things", they have found that people who download Spotify use the service on an ongoing basis, with average user sessions of 60 minutes.

As a Spotify user and huge fan, I can say that main attractions for me are:

1. It's easy to set up and easy to use. The download is quick, especially as compared with the iTunes download which requires frequent updating and annoying prompts to download their preferred browser Safari. My view on new technology, as I've stated before on this blog, is that it must either be so simple that anyone can learn to do it, or so essential that everyone must learn to do it. Spotify is simple.
2. I can add as many tracks as I want, without hogging massive memory on my computer. Plus, there's no chance I'll lose the files.
3. People can easily share playlists on Spotify. With a few clicks via third party site ShareMyPlaylists, I added Rolling Stone's 500 greatest songs of all time. 
4. They have a great selection of music, having signed deals with all four major music labels.
5. I don't have to deal with iPods, which are not built to last and contribute to electronic landfill. 
6. The service is "smart" enough to not serve ads while you are working on PowerPoint or other documents.

They are the first streaming service to strike deals with all the majors, which took a major shift in the labels' attitudes. Mitchell said their initial response when asked if they'd provide their music for free was "F--- Off". It took two-and-a-half years to get them to change their minds. Spotify has also signed deals with CD Baby and independent music aggregator Merlin.

Freemium
Mitchell said the free model is not going away, as with some other services who are ending their free love. Instead, they will entice users to join their Premium service with unique offerings, such as access to U2's latest album one week before it was released. "We want users to have access to the free version so they can test it and see that it's easy to use and have the music they love," explained Mitchell.

Because of the ad-funded model for the free service, they "don't need 80% of their users to pay for the Premium service." However, Mitchell admitted that take-up of the Premium offering is currently low, but he expects it to improve as they educate people about upcoming features.

Demographics
Mitchell didn't go into too much detail about their demographics, but he did reveal that 20% of their audience is 45+. They can target ads based on age, gender and post code. This makes advertising on Spotify much more 1-to-1 than on traditional radio.

What's next for Spotify?

• Spotify announced this morning that the service will be available on the Google Android mobile. [Watch their video announcement.] Expect more mobile phone partnerships.
• They are doing some deals with radio stations so they can recommend playlists (and share in revenue). 
• Their web site states they are looking to work with "ISPs or mobile operators wanting to stand out in the crowd by adding a very comprehensive, legal all-you-can-eat music service to their current voice, TV and broadband services."
• Look for them to launch in other countries, with invite-only access or exclusively through tie-ups with telecomms companies. 

I'll be interested to see what else develops. I think there are opportunities for brands to use Spotify in unique ways, perhaps through mashups. Their founder also started affilliate marketing company TradeDoubler, so he certainly knows how to work with brands. Mitchell said he "can't wait to see what happens when brands and bigger companies get involved." I guess as the sales director, he has more than one reason to be excited about that.

I don't know if I've ever written such a glowing blog post about one company. I hope someone from Spotify sends me a t-shirt.

Can your web site damage your brand?

Is it possible for a web site to be so bad, it damages the brand? I asked around for some examples of brand-damaging web sites...

Nobody home: Don't start publicizing your web site if you don't even have a holding page up. One woman told me she went to a bridal show and received a promotional pen from one of the exhibitors. Although the pen featured their web site, it was still not up six months later!

No content hierarchy: Judy Pokras, the founder of Raw Foods News Magazine offered her own web site as an example of a brand-damaging site. There is no organization to the content, so the user doesn't even know where to start. In fact, I don't even know where to start to help this one! My best advice would be to employ an information architect and start from scratch. 

User unfriendly: Another person said she was frustrated by a volunteer web site "people go there to find volunteer opportunities yet trying to find where to find them isn’t that obvious and then when you look, there aren't many searchable parameters and those that they do have don’t seem to work well so in the end, you really don’t find what you are looking for and are too frustrated to bother."

Outsourcing gone wrong: Hari Karam Singh said Carry On Clothing's web site damages an otherwise fine brand. "They have fantastic macs of the utmost style and quality, but the most tacky web site I’ve ever seen. Including a ridiculous introduction with script and animations that could only be the result of an excessive budget combined with third-world outsourcing."

Too flashy: A pretty well-known "don't" when it comes to SEO is to build a site in Flash. But one person I asked thinks that "any 100% Flash-built site, especially those with an 'intro' and music that I'm forced to sit through" can damage the brand. "Don't you dare use your 'back' button on a Flash site or the whole darn thing will start over. Flash is what I call 'animation masturbation' because all it does is satisfy the ego of the animator. It does nothing to help visitors get to what they want quickly and easily. Worse yet, Flash is a beast for Google because their spiders cannot read and catalogue the content. So there you have it. A terrible user experience ... and a terrible Google rank. What a disaster for any business."

If you recognize your web site in any of these scenarios, do yourself a favor -- take down your web site until you have the budget to do it properly. Put up a well-designed holding page in the meantime.

Before you get the axe: six quick things to do on LinkedIn

With the U.S. officially in recession, and more job cuts announced every week, now is a great time to get ahead of the curve and use social media tools to ensure you are well placed for future networking.

Here are six quick things you can do on LinkedIn:

1. LinkedIn now has a “status” message – similar to Facebook. Your contacts who subscribe to the weekly updates from LinkedIn will see what you’re up to. Get your name out there - but stick to business updates. No one cares that you just fed your cat.
2. Add new contacts to LinkedIn. LinkedIn can search your personal e-mail address book to find your contacts who are already on LinkedIn.
3. It’s important to get LinkedIn now with people in your organization – if they leave and you don’t have their personal e-mail address it will become much more difficult to find them and connect.
4. Join any groups from your current or former employers. Many companies now have a “alumni” groups – often set up by individuals rather than the company – so you can continue to network with former colleagues. Do this now as it'll be easier for the group administrator to verify that you work for the relevant company.
5. Add previous jobs to your profile - it will be easier for former colleagues, and recruiters, to find you.
6. If you have an industry-related blog, connect your blog's feed to your LinkedIn profile.

Rumours of Facebook apps' death have been greatly exaggerated

Back in April, New Media Age* reported that branded apps on Facebook were struggling to attract users. While I do think that any brand getting ready to jump on the bandwagon must offer something truly unique, engaging and relevant to make any headway, branded apps still hold possibilities on Facebook.

Though the initial investment to create and promote an app, according to NMA, is anywhere between £2k and  £30k, brands should take a long-term view. Perhaps this is why Facebook is now reporting on monthly active users, rather than daily active users. Do you really care if your users are interacting with your app every single day?

Take a look at how the apps NMA reported on are doing now (below). MTV, which looked like a loser at 115 daily active users, looks to have gained a following. Even if you assume it was 115 different people each day over the course of the month (say 3,450 daily users), they have experienced a 50% jump in numbers in six+ months.

Other apps, such as Woolworths' Catapult Game and Handbag.com have failed to gain ground.

The lesson is that, while Facebook apps may be a risk, don't give up on them (or fire your agency prematurely!). Some may take time to gain a following. 

*NMA's site requires registration.

Online Marketing and Media: seven easy lessons for sharper online marketing

As I mentioned in my last post, I recently attended the Online Media and Marketing conference in London. I attended a seminar held by Alex Burmaster, a European Business Analyst from Nielsen Online. Here are some of the “lessons” he was offering:

1. Understand the bigger picture. You are probably a small part of someone’s online experience. While in previous years, there was room for every online business to grow, now you need to steal market share.

People are becoming more habitual and are visiting 10% fewer sites than they did last year. Some exceptions are coupon/reward sites – these have seen their audiences grow by 70% in the UK.

2. Know thy audience. There are twice as many people online who are over 50 versus under 18. According to Nielsen, this is how internet usage in the UK stacks up by age:

• 2 - 17 years old - 4.2 million
• 18 - 24 years old - 4.2 million
• 25 - 34 years old - 7 million
• 35 - 49 years old - 9.6 million
• 50 + years old - 9.2 million

It was also interesting to see where those with the highest incomes were spending time online. These are the top 10 sites visited by people with a household income of £50K+ in the UK:

1. Holiday rentals
2. Home web sites
3. Toptable
4. View London
5. Bank of Scotland
6. Companies House
7. LinkedIn
8. Monarch Airlines
9. Hilton
10. Inter Continental Hotels Group

3. Harness the power of video. Every product you have should have a demo video. Videos are viral, engaging, digestible and search friendly.

4. Harness the third screen – mobile. The average uplift for campaigns using mobile is 13%. For B2B, it’s 4%. Location-based GPS has an audience of 1,273,000 in the UK, and 2% of UK mobile subscribers.

5. Listen to what consumer-generated media tells you. It’s worth noting that 54% of people posting opinions about a brand first attempted to contact the brand by e-mail – so get your customer service right!

6. Act on it. Give people a chance to tell you what they think directly. Have a link on your site for customer testimonials.

7. Go the distance.

Online Marketing & Media: Creating a Blended Search Strategy

I recently attended the Online Marketing & Media Conference at the Business Design Center in London. One of the seminars was hosted by Neil McCarthy, the Chief Marketing and Sales Officer for Lattitude. According to McCarthy, 60% of search traffic comes from organic search and 40% comes from paid search (thereby contributing to Google’s millions). However, the breakdown varies depending on your industry and what you’re selling.

75% of traffic from general searches comes from natural search results (according to Google)

For companies trying to sell products, this is reduced to 60%

For the financial service sector the traffic from natural search is only 50%

To maximize your natural search results, I do recommend that most clients get “professional help”. There is some science to it. Focus on maximizing your natural search results using techniques on your own site and external web sites.

Your site should have unique content. Merely replicating or consolidating information that can be found elsewhere will not help your search ranking. Google will ignore it, or worse, think you are a spammer.

Don’t use Flash on your site (for the content portions anyway) – Google can’t read it.

Outside of your own site, work on getting other sites to link to you – but they must be relevant to your business.

Create “link bait”. Give people a reason to link to you by providing something useful (for example, a mortgage calculator may encourage real estate agents to link to you).

In terms of paid search, some useful tips are:

Create ad copy relevant to the keyword on which you are bidding. Sounds obvious, but you could very quickly amass hundreds of keywords to bid on. Group relevant keywords together and create a series of highly targeted, relevant ads.

Ideally, each should click through to a relevant landing page which is not necessarily going to be your home page or a product page.

You have 1.8 seconds to convince people to click on your PPC ad. The copy must be convincing. Test frequently – PPC is one of the most testable mediums out there.

The copy should also pre-qualify your lead. It’s better if no one clicks on your ad than having the wrong people click because the latter costs you money.

As of May 2008, you can bid on competitor names in the UK (this has been the case for a while in the U.S.). Use this strategy with caution however and ensure it doesn’t tarnish your brand image.

You can also bid on words that will help your exposure. For instance, Gillette bid on spokesman Roger Federer during Wimbledon. So, anyone who searched for “Roger Federer” would have seen a PPC ad that read “Roger Federer and Gillette”. It really doesn’t matter whether people clicked through – thousands would have seen the ad and now associate Federer with Gillette.

Another interesting fact was that social media now accounts for more traffic than e-mail and creates one third of the traffic of search.

I’ll cover a session by Nielsen Online at the Online Marketing & Media conference in my next post.

Everything you need to know about web design

Everything you need to know about web design - in rap format from the Poetic Prophet, AKA the SEO Rapper. This could put a lot of web consultants out of business!

Special thanks to Diane Parker for the tip!

Twitter: Being a Couch Potato

Twitter has been on the scene awhile now and six months ago I asked “does anyone give a twit?” It was too soon for marketers to add it into their marketing mix, although I did mention that useful applications may emerge. There have been some tech-oriented developments, but this study from Northwestern University on using technology to rehabilitate couch potatoes is an early indication of practical applications for marketers.

In the study, the subjects used a Palm Pilot to measure their activity and record food intake. Now imagine if instead, the subjects used Twitter. Some savvy marketer will be able to use data like “doing ab crunches” to sell an 8 Minute Abs DVD or “eating two rice cakes” to sell the latest low-fat food of the month.

Give it six more months.

Micro Social Networking

While MySpace currently dominates social networking in the U.S. and Facebook dominates in the UK, many wonder how long they’ll cling to their user bases. The online audience can be fickle, as Friendster can attest. I think they’ll be around for awhile because many users have already “invested” in the sites by creating customized profiles in MySpace and adding copious applications on their Facebook pages. It’s hard to imagine another major player overtaking these sites any time soon (in the online space, let’s call that six months).

A trend I’m seeing is smaller social networks around particular interest groups or areas, e.g. CafeMom and Green Thing (a site I’ve just helped to launch). While these sites won’t be the next Facebook, they will attract users and engage them with relevant content. Brands often aim to increase their “share of wallet” – what they’ll be facing online is a challenge to increase their “share of week” and the micro social networks may be the real threat to the current behemoths.

Digital Serfdom: I want my UGC

If content is king, then why are the content creators being treated as serfs?

The content creators (serfs) are doing countless hours of labour, just for the right to “live” on the content distributors’ (landholders’) “land”. While in the feudal system, serfs earned a percentage of the product they produced, today’s digital serfs merely occupy server space – in most cases, they don’t see a penny of the digital landholders’ profits.

This market evolution is already having an effect on the creative industry. For instance, The Writers’ Guild of Great Britain, which operates on revenues from fees based on a percentage of member income, is facing an increasing operating deficit. The Guild has the same number of members, but revenues are down significantly. What this means, is that British writers, on the whole, are making less money.

Meanwhile, Google has been accused of trouncing on writers’ rights by digitizing books still under copyright – thereby reducing residual income to writers.

Actors in Britain are also suffering with a union that is too weak to enforce a fair deal for rights to re-use content in online media. For example, ITV recently announced it is putting ads on its broadband streaming download service. The IPA raised a concern last year about actors’ and musicians’ rights. ITV’s response? Wait a year, and do it anyway.

If you or your clients make money off the back of user-generated content, I urge you to think about fair compensation for content creators. They are not all kids sitting around with free time and a camcorder; and actually, they shouldn’t be. Don’t you want the best creative talent to contribute to your site? Talent is worth paying for. If you don’t think so, then walk down the hall and ask your copywriter if he’ll write your next campaign for free.

We all think we’re getting something for nothing with UGC, but the reality is we’re contributing to a system that is making it difficult for creative artists to make a living. We need to encourage talent and create a model that is sustainable for content distributors, online advertisers and content creators – instead of just fattening up digital landowners like YouTube with its Google billions.

Free content comes at a price.

YourBrandSucks.com

Many companies are throwing around buzzwords like "customer journeys" and "the customer experience". But that experience encompasses more than outbound communications and how customers navigate through a web site. For long-term success, and to create brand evangelists, companies need to focus on customer service. This means facing up to the fact that some people may have a negative experience with your brand.

Today, there is more dialogue between brands and consumers than ever. That's why it surprises me that so many brands are missing an opportunity to re-engage with disaffected customers. I'm talking about domains like [yourcompanyname]sucks.com.

[Yourcompanyname]sucks.com has become a convention for disaffected customers who are looking for a place to vent, along with other clever domain names such as untied.com for disgruntled United Airlines customers. I must admit, I recently had an epic struggle with Tiscali, and after four months with no broadband service, I looked to the web for a place to vent on www.tiscalisucks.com. To my surprise, this URL linked directly to the Tiscali home page. So, they acknowledge that some customers would be unhappy with their service, yet rather than putting up a landing page addressing these customers, they choose to ignore them and treat them like everyone else. (Bizarrely, tiscalisucks.com now links to Tiscali's Belgian business site.)

A better option would be to create a landing page with a customer service focus, and to be honest and humble about the fact that your company may not be meeting customers' expectations. Then direct them to FAQs or provide a place for customers to give feedback -- ensuring that it will be read and dealt with promptly.

Then hopefully, contrary to the goals of most web sites, you can decrease traffic to your sucks.com customer reengagement page.

Does anyone give a Twit?

If you haven't heard of Twitter, it's a social networking web site on which you can let people know what you are doing at all times, like:

Listening to music. 7:06 pm

Thinking about what to make for dinner. 7:10 pm

Dreaming up new ways to waste immense amounts of time. 7:15 pm

Okay, okay. I'm no luddite. It's early days yet for Twitter and useful applications may emerge. But it's definitely still in its early adopter phase of teens, tweens, technorati and politicos.

It's a definite wait and see on this one before adding it to your marketing mix.

Originality 2.0

We've all heard of Web 2.0. It's a clever term which reflects the latest wave of the internet's evolution. But now, everyone wants to be a "2.0". I recently read an article about a P.R. firm that supposedly coined the phrase P.R. 2.0. Today, I received an e-mail inviting me to a webinar called Acquisition 2.0. If these companies want to capture my attention -- and my imagination -- they should brand their message, product, service or philosophy in an original way which crystallizes the issues, trends and current state of their own discipline rather than genericizing a pre-existing term. This is especially true for companies in the business of communicating.

Well, enough of that rant. I need to turn off my TV 2.0 and call the Dog Walker 2.0 before I visit my Nephew 2.0.

Feed the Machine - £30 of free advertising from Google AdWords

If you've been following the search wars, then you'll already know that Google has 77% of the market share of UK online searches [Hitwise, June 2006]. This business is reportedly worth 1.6 billion dollars to Google. That's right, over a BILLION just in the UK. It's mind googling – ahem, I mean mind boggling.

Well, now's your chance to get started with a little freebie from Google AdWords. It's worth a try to gauge which keywords will deliver results for you, and to find out how much they'll cost. Here's the blurb from Google, which appeared in MarketingWeek in the 8 March 2007 issue:

Please go to www.google.co.uk/aw-voucher18 and request a £30 free AdWords voucher now. We will then send you an email containing your promotional code and will explain how to set up your campaign in as little as 15 minutes. There's no additional spend commitment, so this offer is risk free. Start advertising today!

This promotional code can only be used for AdWords accounts that are less than 14 days old. Only one promotional code per customer.

Oddly, they haven't listed an expiry date for the offer. Just be sure they send you the promo code before you get started.

Second Life: the end is nigh

Regular readers may remember that I urged marketers to get into Second Life back in September, or risk losing the PR value, which I thought would disappear within six months. I also reported a growing backlash in November.

Now Serendipity Book has helpfully compiled a list of articles confirming the PR value of entering Second Life has all but disappeared. Time for marketers to jump onto the next big thing.You heard it here first!

Second Life: the countdown is on

About two months ago, I posted that you should get your clients a Second Life within six months before the PR value diminishes. Already the backlash against this growing enterprise is beginning. New corporations are springing up in Second Life weekly, causing some residents in Second Life to ban companies from their online real estate, but there is debate about whether the backlash is a real threat, or confined to a small vigilant group.

The fact that there is discussion about a backlash at all should be a yellow flag. It’s still worth getting on Second Life because, as the BBC puts it, they are barely out of the news, but make sure that your presence adds value to Second Life members.

The other reason it’s still worth getting on Second Life is the membership: it’s growing faster than ever – about 38% per month – and the monetary and time costs of channel switching are still too high to make it worthwhile for members.

Security concerns are another yellow flag:

• A few days ago, Second Life had to close down due to a worm attack called grey goo.
• In September, Second Life member account data was compromised.
• A script called CopyBot was released that enables users to replicate virtual items without having to pay for them. So take note if you were thinking of recommending that your clients create virtual products.

Second Life seems to handle any issues quickly and efficiently, but nevertheless make sure that your clients don’t compromise any customer or transactional data. Keep a watch on technology limitations and security breaches. The latter is another backlash indicator.

Let’s see how things progress over the next four months; it may prove to be a lifetime for Second Life.

Is HTML the new Typing?

I’m back on my soapbox about the need for new technology to either be so simple that anyone can learn to do it, or so essential that everyone must learn to do it. For instance, texting on a mobile phone is simple enough for anyone to learn, but one could get by in life without ever texting. Typing, however, has become so essential that everyone must learn to do it (even if it’s just “hunt and peck”.) I’m starting to wonder where HTML fits into the picture.

Sure, the average person does not need to know HTML to go about their daily life – yet. But consider the following popular sites that require a very basic knowledge of HTML:

• To set up a blog on Google’s free blog site Blogger, you need a basic understanding of HTML. Otherwise, your blog will end up with “Edit me” where user-selected links should be. (Click on the picture to the right for an example.)

• If you want anything other than a bog standard MySpace page, you need to know a bit of HTML. In fact, take a look at these notes in their help menu:

Adding color, graphics, and sound to your profile page is easy and requires only a basic knowledge of HTML (the programming language used to create web pages on the Internet). Simply go to "Edit Profile" and enter the desired HTML coding where appropriate. If you do not know HTML, you can reach out and make a new friend by asking someone who has color, graphics, and/or sound on their Profile page how they did it. People on MySpace are friendly and always willing to help, so just ask! This is a great way to meet new people! 

Appalling customer service, but that’s another topic.

• If you want to add any flare to your craigslist ad, like bolding or adding a line space, you have to know some simple HTML code.

Perhaps because these are free sites, a fully WYSIWG application is too much to expect. But then, look at how many MySpace, Blogger and craigslist users have figured it out. Will more sites and more applications assume a basic knowledge of HTML? In the future, will HTML be so essential that everyone must learn to do it?

Marketers, get your clients a Second Life now

If you don’t know what Second Life is, it’s an online 3D social media environment that users experience through avatars. In Second Life, you (your avatar, that is) can be anyone you want to be. You can make friends, buy property and go to the cinema or the shopping mall. In short, you can do anything you can do in the “real” world. You can also do things you can’t do in the real world, such as fly.

Some think of it as a multi-user game that thousands of people can interact with and participate in at one time. However, Second Life is more than a game. It has also created a viable economy for virtual goods. Second Life businesses have sprung up selling virtual items as diverse as clothes, furniture, books, skateboards, even property.

The growth curve is similar to where blogging was 18-24 months ago. The user base is rapidly expanding – at around 20% a month. That’s without any marketing by Linden Lab, Second Life’s creators.

But I dug a bit deeper when I suggested to a client that they get a Second Life. I thought it was a good fit for the brand (I can’t disclose the company yet for confidentiality reasons). My client was a global corporation and having a presence in this new world made sense for them. But looking at the stats, having a presence on Second Life is not yet a way to win throngs of new customers. BBC hosted a 2-day concert which only attracted 6,000 users; in fact the maximum number of users that can attend an event at any one time is 60-100. That can make events like MLB’s home-run competition with an empty-looking stadium. Only 50 people turned up.

So if you’re not getting new customers, why get a Second Life? The answer is press coverage. There’s been a lot of buzz about the businesses in Second Life. In the past few months, Second Life has had press coverage in The Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, The Observer, Business Week Online, The Globe and Mail, Harvard Business Review, Forbes.com, USA Today, Times Online, The Economist, MSNBC.com and more.

If these are the kinds of publications that your client’s customers read, then you should consider Second Life as part of your marketing mix. But hurry, depending on what you build it could take at least two months to launch… and in six months you’ll no longer get the PR benefits of being an early corporate adopter.

RSS is suffering from an image problem

Marketers, do you know what RSS is? If you don’t, you should. RSS is a technology that helps users consolidate content in one place. Customers can be notified every time their favourite web site has been updated, rather than having to manually check to see what’s new on each site. RSS has been around for a number of years, but it is becoming more widely used with blogs.

How does it work?

Customers subscribe to an RSS aggregator which either sends them an e-mail (through a compatible program such as Outlook), or compiles the posts on a web page such as My Yahoo!. Each time a blog or other site with RSS is updated, the customer will have instant access to the information.

So, what’s the problem?

Only 18% of bloggers offer RSS feeds and as of June last year and only 9% of internet users even knew what it was, according to a Pew Internet Report.

What could be the next step in opt-in communications has hit a brick wall in terms of user acceptance. I think it just sounds too complicated for most users: syndication, aggregator, feeds. To the average person, this does not sound really simple.

Furthermore, many podcasters are having to clarify that just because the terminology for getting a podcast is to “subscribe”, customers don’t have to pay for the content. “Subscribe” is a loaded term; this is what we get when technology people rather than marketers (or linguists) are creating the lexicon.

A lot of people in the blogosphere forget that most internet users just want to be consumers. They don’t want to have to take time to learn the technological jargon – unless they absolutely have to.

My view on user adoption of technology is that anything new needs to be so simple that anyone can learn to do it, or so essential that every one must learn to do it.

Why marketers should pay attention

RSS will either prove to be an essential technology, or a better evolution of RSS will come along that as marketers we should be aware of and understand. A new site or service that utilizes RSS as an enabling technology in an unexpected way may be the internet’s next big thing. Or some kid in his/her college dorm will dream up an even better way of pushing content out to users. Let’s just hope he gives it a better name.