There has been a lot of attention being given to blog-to-email applications this week. While the new apps are solid, and a potential for increased readership is plain to see, I can’t get excited about the technology.
To lead off, the potential for increased readership will be slight for technology bloggers - their readers know what RSS is and already recognize it as a better way to digest news and information.
RSS and email aren’t complimentary technologies. Readership will split between the two, and I’d expect a very slight overall increase to come from offering a second option. Even if the familiarity with email drives sign-ups, you’ll have to wonder how many of those readers would have signed up for the rss feed. (Aaron’s guess: most)
We’ve been developing sites with integrated eMail marketing and newsletters for years. We’ve seen the benefits firsthand. But even our most aggressive clients aren’t emailing subscribers every day. Each news source or blogger would though - they’d be expected to.
Using an RSS reader with simple filters applied, I can fully digest continual feeds from about 100 blogs and news sources in a day. But turn those feeds into emails, and I’d be irritated to say the least.
The bottom line is that I want my news and information pushed to me. The last thing I need is a one to one communication path with my news source. That’s why I like RSS. It allows a clear separation between correspondence and news. It guarantees delivery of the content I’ve requested and allows me to assign it a priority without setting up new folders and rules. It allows me to define reading preferences that don’t conflict with my writing preferences. It keeps my mind clean.
Techcrunch and Read/WriteWeb both posted conversations on the topic today.
Is there any harm in adding another option for readers? It sounds like you’d expect to see added readership, albeit slight.
I don’t think the potential for increased readership would justify the increased potential for being labeled as a spammer. CAN-SPAM gives me a headache. If your readers aren’t likely to be RSS happy, though, I can see the benefit.
I still don’t like it though - just like I wouldn’t like news being delivered to me via a phone call.