blogging 102

Reading time: 3 – 5 minutes RSS feeds seem to be the breakout technology for the year. With more users turning to them for driving traffic to their site, its no wonder that a trail of RSS feed spam is following in the wake. A careful editing of your RSS feed could make the difference between being classified as genuine content or RSS spam. RSS search engines are just beginning to pick up steam. As more RSS feeds become searchable, the number of visitors will increase and spam is sure to follow. It is an unfortunate side effect of free communication. While RSS users can typically unsubscribe to feeds they deem as spam, browsing with keywords in an RSS search engine is where the problem arises. RSS spam largely consists of three main types most often found in the RSS search engines. The first type is keyword stuffing. Keyword stuffing involves filling each RSS feed article with high-value keywords for a specific topic. The articles are not intended for human visitors, but instead for... 

Reading time: 6 – 9 minutes We were waiting for something like this to happen for a long time. Yahoo!, one of the key providers of mass-market RSS aggregators, finally took a step forward and published their RSS whitepaper, covering their own findings with RSS, based on their usage data. 1. YAHOO!’S KEY FINDINGS Let’s first take a look at Yahoo! key findings and what they mean for marketers. a] Awareness of RSS is quite low among Internet users. 12% of users are aware of RSS, and 4% have knowingly used RSS. Although RSS awareness is increasing, only few internet users yet understand what RSS is and how to use it. For marketers, this means that simply placing an RSS button on their site it not nearly enough, with the report finally demonstrating that marketers needs to use clear and persuasive copy to get their visitors interested in RSS, explain RSS to them and get them to subscribe to their feeds. In addition it also shows that marketers need to make sure they are using... 

Reading time: 7 – 11 minutes If you’re wondering how to get started with RSS marketing, here’s a basic 7-step plan that should provide some needed guidance. Use these steps as your personal RSS marketing checklist to get your started and help you see whether you’re on the right track. 1. START USING RSS AS AN END-USER The first step to getting started with RSS marketing/publishing is getting your own RSS aggregator, subscribing to other RSS feeds and just seeing and understanding how it all works. There’s a variety of RSS aggregators to choose from. Just a small sample: a) Web-based RSS aggregators (websites): http://my.yahoo.com, http://www.pluck.com, http://www.newsgator.com, http://www.bloglines.com b) Desktop RSS aggregators (software): http://www.awasu.com, http://www.bradsoft.com/feeddemon/, http://www.stevenwood.org/stories/2003/06/08/voxLite.htm c) Integrated RSS aggregators (integrate with IE or Microsoft Outlook): http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/...