Yahoo, RSS, and Duh!
Yesterday, Steve Rubel articulated the issues around RSS and large, profitable web properties - specifically Yahoo!. He updates today with a broader discussion of this issue here. I’ve been discussing this in presentations for the past year that RSS, while a phenomenal “new” service that web users can benefit from, requires a web property focused on pageviews to rethink their advertising strategy.
Namely, should a frequent reader only subscribe to your feeds, there is NO reason for them to come back to your website. That is, unless you are primarily an e-commerce website. So, can you monetize your RSS feeds significantly enough to replace the the money you’ll see disappear from your CPM reduction? So far, advertising in RSS feeds is still nascient, so I’m thinking that you won’t be able to. Thus, those web properties focused on ad sales to survive have to reconsider how quickly they adopt an RSS strategy.
The big surprise for me is that Yahoo! appears to not have considered this when they started or at least when they saw RSS taking off. Poor strategic planning, guys.
What do you think CNN, WSJ, and Time should/will do in light of this discussion? AOL already has enough revenue problems and now, they have a new leader (Randy Falco) who doesn’t appear to appreciate email - is that a sign that he’ll adopt RSS or that he doesn’t yet know what it stands for….?