Online Communications: Is RSS to be used by PR Pros ? - Interview with Fergus Burns, CEO of Nooked

I was wondering whether RSS could become a daily tool for PR Pro in the management of our PR campaign. I feel there is a lot of potential applications for it but wanted to hear an expert giving me his vision on this topic.

Fergus Burns, CEO of Nooked has kindly accepted to answer my questions, knowing that the goal is to determine if RSS is to become a must for our industry.

(Nooked is NOT one of our clients….)

Below is the interview:

Can you explain RSS in few words for people who never heard about it?

RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication. It’s a relatively old technology, that is now becoming the de-facto standard for the publishing and subscribing of web content.

RSS is published in feeds or channels, and read using a new category of software called news aggregators – check bloglines, my yahoo, newsgator and feeddemon for good examples of news aggregators.

RSS is gaining broad industry adoption, particularly from its strong association with weblogs. RSS is an extremely efficient way of consuming information – it enables better productivity for everyone.

At Microsoft’s Annual CEO Summit, Bill Gates advocated RSS, by saying

“Getting away from the drawbacks of e-mail – that its too imposing – and yet the drawbacks of the web site – that you don’t know if there’s something new and interesting there – [RSS] is about solving that”

The easiest way to explain RSS is to start using it – sign up at www.bloglines.com to start subscribing to RSS channels.

What main difference do you see between RSS and email or newsletter ?

RSS is not a replacement for email or newsletters. RSS is a complimentary communications channel.

There are many benefits that RSS gives you over email and newsletters. For example, RSS is not subject to spam blockers and email filters and users get news when its news – no checking websites or waiting for monthly or quarterly newsletters.

It’s also private and secure, with the potential for reuse and syndication.

Finally RSS is been recommended by many journalists as the preferred way of communicating with them.

For example Dan Gillmore, technology Journalist with SiliconValley.com, has said

"I wish public-relations people would get with the program, too. If they'd only start creating RSS feeds of releases, journalists and the public at large could see the material they want, and the PR industry would be able to stop blasting huge amounts of e-mail to people whose inboxes are already over-cluttered. Of course, there will continue to be a use for e-mail in PR, but the volume could be cut substantially."

How can PR people create added-value thanks to RSS for their client campaigns?

Given that PR agencies handle on a daily basis corporate communication material for their clients, such as press releases, media coverage, events, analyst coverage, etc, they are in a great position to provide a value added service by re-using this content.

The PR agency can manage their clients RSS channels, and provide the monthly RSS measurement information to demonstrate the business value of such an initiative to the client.

It also demonstrates to the client, that the PR agency is at the fore front of providing unique value added services, which can act as a differentiator in client pitches.

Nooked are investing time and effort with PR agency partners in building relationships, which is bringing RSS to the agency clients, whilst a viable value added business is bringing additional revenues into the agency.

Can you generate RSS feeds by category/type of information or is one feed supposed to

gather all information?

The number and type of RSS feeds used by companies is primarily based on their business needs.

For example, a large company such as Cisco provides many RSS channels based on content type and target audience. A smaller company such as Rococosoft or Traventec may use an RSS channel for a single purpose – all corporate communications in one channel, newsletter channel, etc.

Nooked provides the ability to create numerous channels of content.

Do PR boutiques need the help of webmaster/developers to implement/generate RSS

fields, or does Nooked provide specific tools?

Implementing and deploying RSS channels is made easy by Nooked – all that is required is that the webmaster places 2 lines of HTML code on the client website ONCE.

The RSS channel content is managed independently, thus avoiding the requirement of the webmaster to constantly change items on the website, thus lowering the total cost of ownership on the client to Nil.

It is easy to follow emails and to know if they are read or even only received by the target, but how is it possible to track subscription to RSS feeds?

RSS measurement is acknowledged as a challenge by the industry – however Nooked are one of the 1^st to provide detailed RSS measurement information for their users, through our Nooked.com service.

This measurement includes the level of traffic to the RSS channel, the level of click through on specific items, the IP address of the source, with the information capable of been plotted from a daily to a yearly basis.

Nooked also recommends the use of Bloglines as the RSS reader of choice, which provides information on the number of subscribers, with personal public information provided on subscribers.

Nooked also provides built in support for services such as:

- Technorati - Technorati is the authority on what's going on in the world of weblogs

- PubSub - PubSub is a matching service that instantly notifies you when new content is created that matches your subscription

- Feedster - dynamically monitors the world of RSS

- Syndic8 - place to come to find RSS and Atom news feeds on a wide variety of topics.

- My Yahoo

These services enable Nooked clients to extend the reach of their RSS channels.

What kind of information are you able to provide to PR agencies that have to give

feedback/statistics to their clients on their campaign using RSS?

Nooked provides a monthly report on all RSS measurement benchmarks based on the Nooked account. Nooked subscribers have the capability to export their RSS measurement data into CSV format for more detailed analysis.

PR agencies can also demonstrate via 3^rd party tools, that by using RSS they are enhancing their search engine optimization.

Could RSS be seen as a tool to be better informed, and if yes, why?

Given the growth of RSS adoption by the technology industry, especially industry influencers, it enables people to subscribe to more sources of data than was possible before.

Keith O’Brien of PR Week defined RSS as follows:

“Brings websites to the user, who otherwise would have to chase the website”

Other innovative products such as Technorati, Feedster, Yahoo, Syndic8 and Moreover.com make it easier to track and monitor web commentary related to your client – this has been made possible by the adoption and growth of RSS usage.

What is the main strength/advantage of RSS?

RSS has many benefits -

- RSS is a complimentary communications channel.

- RSS is not subject to spam blockers and email filters

- Users get news when its news – no checking websites and waiting for monthly or quarterly newsletters.

- RSS is private and secure

- RSS is reusable

- RSS is measurable through Nooked

- RSS is been recommended by many journalists as the preferred way of communicating with them.

What is from your point of view the next evolution in the use of RSS?

RSS is a technology standard that is packaged into solutions and services by vendors.

The evolution of RSS will come from the vendors of RSS solutions – these companies are delivering innovative services that are making a difference in many industries - corporate communications, community building, information consumption, web monitoring, etc.

For example the mainstream technology vendors are now supporting RSS:

- Apple have built RSS right into a new version of Safari called Safari RSS

- Microsoft have announced and provided demos of RSS within Longhorn, Outlook and Explorer

- Yahoo now supports RSS within its My Yahoo offering

2005 will be the year of RSS adoption growth – with Nooked assisting PR agencies and their clients joining the RSS movement.