Archive of UserLand's first discussion group, started October 5, 1998.

Re: Internet Alchemy

Author:Jeffrey Veen
Posted:6/14/1999; 11:48:38 AM
Topic:Internet Alchemy
Msg #:7353 (In response to 7349)
Prev/Next:7352 / 7354

Thanks for passing the microphone over Dave. ;)

I'm not really responding in an official capacity, since I'm out of the office and haven't discussed this with the Wired News editorial staff. However, there are a few reasons that I've been geeked about RSS, or rather "empowering anyone to play with the big guys."

1. The most obvious reason that this is a Good Thing is that it by syndicating far and wide, our reach extends that much further with minimal effort on our part. A standard format like RSS (or OCS, which is a much nedded upgrade of the current barebones implementation) makes it ridiculously easy for us to get our conent in front of eyeballs that wouldn't normally seek us out. It a perfect example of the word of mouth advertising that makes the net actually work.

2. Are we loosing front door revenue? Sure, some. But speaking totally unscientifically now, my gut tells me that the increased traffic of having our headlines show up on someone's homepage time they fire up a browser would greatly outweigh the single frontdoor impression we get when they remember to visit www.wired.com.

3. Frontdoor advertising is not nearly as effective as banners placed in context deeper in the site. When you visit a website, how often to you click the ad banner on the front door? Chances are you're visiting the site for a specific reason, i.e. to read news. Seldom are our users so enticed by a front door banner that they abandon their initial goal of reading news entirely.

best, -jeff www.veen.com

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