Currently there are 3 main types of broadcast Internet

messaging systems that you can use to deliver newsletters,

e-zines and other informational materials to your customers. I'm not going to cover here internal or intranet messaging

systems, the main focus of this article is on the virtual

world outside your local/corporate network. The main Internet Broadcasting Systems are:- Email broadcasts that are sent through sender's ISP and

received with the email client of your customer (such as

Outlook, Outlook Express, Eudora, Web Mail systems, etc. )- RSS Feeds delivered through web-based RSS Aggregators. - Completely customizable and personalized multi-media

messages that are sent through RSS Channels and received

with branded RSS Readers (such as Private Mail Reader and

Feed Demon). E-mail communications used to be a very efficient way to

deliver information to your prospects and customers. This

was working well until we got spammers - thousands of

unethical people trashing your inboxes with annoying junk

offers without any permission on your part. Nobody really

wanted these products, ISP customers were irritated with

email-boxes full of irrelevant content, to say the least. Big and small ISP companies (Internet Service Providers)

responded by developing anti-spam filters and society at

large was forced to work out a set of anti-spam laws

regulating the use of e-mails. So legitimate internet marketers had to accommodate

themselves to these unpleasant changes by implementing

various forms of opt-in verifications. In other words, now

the customers have to confirm in some way that they give you

permission to send them e-mails. And you inevitably loose a percentage of your customers who

for some reasons doesn't want to go through the opt-in

process. Unfortunately, this is only the tip of the iceberg.

Anti-spam filters are now so tight, that they easily throw

in the bulk folder even legitimate e-mails. How it could

happen? Well, you may accidentally use some of the "bad

words" - such as "free", "buy", "purchase", etc (there are

hundreds of "spam words" and the list grows every day). You

know very well what happen to the bulk folder emails - they

are as good as trash. Chances that recipient will ever read

bulk emails are slim to none. You also loose some of your readers when you try to enhance

their experience by sending emails in html format (which

would allow you to add colors, and pictures to your email,

use different fonts, etc). You might want to go even further and insert audio or video

streams into your emails to give your readers the

opportunity to better comprehend the featured topic. You might want to do other neat things. . . . Well, don't bother. Sorry to disappoint you, but your

efforts will be in vain. Major ISPs consider html to be the

format for commercial emails and as such it triggers spam

filters almost automatically. Some analytic companies estimate that you can easily fail to

reach as much as 70% of your customers in the nearest

future. According to Doubleclick, one of the e-mail delivery

leaders, the average rate of opened e-mails in 4th Quarter

of 2004 declined 11. 4% from Q4 2003, and is now only 32. 6%. Very bright picture, isn't it?Luckily, there is a solution, and it comes in a form of RSS

technology (Really Simple Syndication). To put it simply, RSS Feeds are the streams of information

presented in xml format. This syndication allows webmasters

to find the feeds of interest written by other authors and

easily place them on their own web sites (with authors

permission, of course). The Big Benefit is that this

information is automatically updated every time when the

particular RSS feed is updated. In case of RSS aggregators, readers simply subscribe to the

feeds and read them through web-based user interfaces (one

of the popular RSS aggregators, for example, is My Yahoo -

find the RSS Feeds of your choices, add them to your My

Yahoo page - and you will receive the update on what is new

on these feeds and will be able to read it in user-friendly

format (you don't have to learn xml). Each time you go to MY

Yahoo you will be informed which of these feeds were updated

in the last 3 days. And finally, there is a third option - RSS Readers. It gives

readers the ability not to worry about the information of

their choice being blocked by ISP anti-spam filters. They

can simply download RSS Feed Reader and enjoy the benefits

of private media-rich environment from your computer!You don't have to go to any websites to get these data and

you're not forced to receive this information, you decide

where and when to receive it. (Whereas with e-mails you're

facing the fact that anybody could send them to your mailing

address). There are a many good RSS readers out there. Some are free,

other offer free trial. The most well-known is FeedDemon

(has free trial), then goes SharpReader, NewsCrawler, Awasu,

PMR etc. Now it's your turn to explore the benefits of RSS

technology. Use RSS messaging system of your choice and stay

ahead of your competitors!Terms of reprint:You have permission to publish this article electronically

or in print, free of charge, as long as the bylines are

included. All url's or mailto addresses should be set up as

hyperlinks. No redirects are allowed. You can not change or

delete any words or links in the article or Resource box.

Do not use this article in Unsolicited Commercial Email. A courtesy copy of your publication would be appreciated.

Contact the author: Oleg Ilin

mailto:articles@1ezhost. biz?subject=ArticleRequestCopyright@ 2005 Oleg IlinOleg Ilin, the president of 1EzHost L. L. C. - custom web site design, development and internet marketing company, invites you to visit http://www. 1ezhost. biz and get your unique and result-driven website done by professionals. Free gift for you: 2 valuable internet marketing e-books: http://www. 1ezhost. biz/onoff1. php

Author:
Oleg Ilin