Expert RSS Interviews
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Unleash the Marketing & Publishing Power of RSS Expert RSS Interviews Rok Hrastnik, MarketingStudies.net [email protected] http://www.marketingstudies.net Version: 1.0 Last updated: 2005-01-10 Unleash the Marketing & Publishing Power of RSS Acknowledgements Special thanks to all the people that made this e-book possible, especially … • to my better half, Simona, who stood by me and supported me during all this time; • to Crt Jakhel who stood by as my on-the-fly editor and helped me edit the first version of this e-book, as well as provided some much needed expert technical insight; • to Robin Good for all of his great ideas on what additional information should be included in the book, for his support and for his critical views of the content provided here; • to Bill French who started all of this with an interview he gave me and then waited patiently for publication, as well as provided much needed motivation to finish this work; • to Olga Farber who is always standing by with new resources from around the internet and also wrote the External Promotion chapter; • and to all the wonderful people that contributed to this e-book and made it possible, not listed in any particular order: Robin Good, Bill French, F. Andy Seidl, Tom Hespos, Bill Flitter, Alex Williams, Dana VanDen Heuvel, Raj Devasagayam, Shawn Collins, Tom Barnes, Paul Chaney, Jim Gray, Alex Barnett, Alan Webb, Crt Jakhel, Jeanne Jennings, Dwight Shih, James Robertson, Kim Bloomer, Trina Schiller, Rick Bruner, Derek Scruggs, Christopher Knight, Chad Williams, Tig Tillinghast, Alain Jourdier, Heiko Hebig, John Moore, Laura Ries, Amy Gahran, Sally Falkow, Åsk Wäppling, Eric Ward, Kevin Bidwell and last but not least Doug Hudiburg; • and to John Botscharow for all of our wonderful and highly controversial debates on RSS and for introducing me to the topic of RSS a few years ago. 2 Unleash the Marketing & Publishing Power of RSS Table of Contents Table of Contents .......................................................................................................3 Section IX: RSS and Blogging Interviews .............................................................. 5 Robin Good, MasterNewMedia.org................................................................................6 Dana VanDen Heuvel, blogSavant and Raj Devasagayam, PhD...............................19 Bill French and F. Andy Seidl, MyST Technology Partners.........................................32 Tom Hespos, Underscore Marketing ...........................................................................50 Bill Flitter, Pheedo........................................................................................................59 Alex Williams, DecisionCast ........................................................................................66 Shawn Collins, Shawn Collins Consulting ...................................................................71 Tom Barnes, MediaThink.............................................................................................76 Paul Chaney, Radiant Marketing Group ......................................................................83 Jim Gray, Quikonnex.com............................................................................................90 Alex Barnett, Microsoft.................................................................................................97 Alan Webb, ABAKUS.................................................................................................103 Crt Jakhel, Dergan.....................................................................................................107 Jeanne S. Jennings, JeanneJennings.com ...............................................................111 Dwight Shih, Ideoplex ................................................................................................121 James Robertson, Cincom.........................................................................................125 Kim Bloomer, KimBloomer.com.................................................................................134 Trina Schiller, TLC Promotions..................................................................................145 Rick Bruner, Executive Summary Consulting ............................................................153 Derek Scruggs, FanPrints..........................................................................................157 Christopher Knight, EmailUniverse.com ....................................................................163 Chad Williams, RSSads.............................................................................................168 Tig Tillinghast, MarketingVox.....................................................................................172 Alain Jourdier, MarketingDriven.................................................................................181 Heiko Hebig, Six Apart...............................................................................................185 John Moore, Brand Autopsy ......................................................................................189 Laura Ries, Ries & Ries.............................................................................................196 Amy Gahran, Gahran.com.........................................................................................199 3 Unleash the Marketing & Publishing Power of RSS Åsk Wäppling, Adland................................................................................................204 Fergus Burns, Nooked.com .......................................................................................210 Views and Experience From Other Marketers...........................................................216 Eric Ward, EricWard.com .......................................................................................216 Kevin Bidwell, All-In-One-Business.com ................................................................217 Doug Hudiburg, The Daily Marketing Ace ..............................................................219 4 Unleash the Marketing & Publishing Power of RSS Section IX: RSS and Blogging Interviews 5 Unleash the Marketing & Publishing Power of RSS Robin Good, MasterNewMedia.org Web site: http://www.masternewmedia.org 1. Robin, thank you for taking the time to do this interview for our readers. Could you perhaps start by introducing yourself and what you do? Thank you for inviting me and a big hello to your readers. I am Robin Good, a new media researcher, analyst and advisor who likes to play the role of the technology explorer that scouts and tests new technologies for effective communication and distance learning. Now-a-days there is very little true communication taking place between companies and customers in these new industries, and while press releases still play the major part in the public communication efforts of a company, the customers are looking for more honest, truthful, unhyped and genuine information about the companies they want to buy from. So, I talk a lot to users as well as to companies. I get lots of bad, boring and amateurish online demos and I truly spend quite some time testing and trying out many of these new technologies. To make all of this research activity valuable I have also chosen to become an independent online publisher, and through a mini-network of sites I am sharing 95% of what I discover with the public. You can see some of this work in free display at MasterNewMedia (http://www.masternewmedia.org/), Kolabora (http://www.Kolabora.com/) and MasterViews (http://www.masterviews.com/). I also like to give wings to other independent reporters, change agents, and online activists. I provide the means and facilities for talented writers, journalists and tech specialists to gain rapidly experience and credentials by contributing news to my own sites or by supporting the development of their own independent channels. (See the Communication Agents Initiative and is growing set of sites at http://www.communicationagents.com/ and http://robingood.typepad.com/ . I share with them my communication expertise and help them bring to reality their desired calls to action and attention. 6 Unleash the Marketing & Publishing Power of RSS 2. How do you believe RSS will shape the future of the business and marketing world? RSS is such a powerful and revolutionary online force that I think it is very difficult to clearly anticipate where it will lead us exactly. The impacts maybe numerous and very diverse. Being RSS a highly cost-effective, and easy to implement information distribution channel, it will give wings to all of those applications where the ability to share in near real-time updates to news or to other information that is in constant, periodical change, is of critical importance. RSS is outstandingly good for news distribution, for product updates and customer support, for creating information feeds out of processes and tasks that we normally discount as possible sources of useful information. Since RSS does not expose the recipients to risks of spam or continued interruptive marketing communications, businesses can utilize RSS to provide niche information channels with customers and partners on topics that are very specialized, without incurring in any large investment or need for extra human resources to maintain it. Marketing can also take immense advantages of RSS by leveraging its fast growing distribution to extend the reach and visibility of important company news and information to major technology publishers,