The Importance of RSS in the Corporate World

Just Imagine This Scenario

• A corporate communications director making sure that the widest possible coverage of her latest press release through an RSS feed and ensuring dissemination via a news aggregator.
• The internal communications manager sending out daily reports, both internal data and externally sourced information, to all his company employees all around the world in the chosen RSS option. He is assured that no one is inadvertently left off the circulation list.
• A consultant needing to keep his customer regularly updated on a particular project. He creates a weblog and makes this available to his customer through a RSS feed; Rest assured.
• A competitive information professional using the RSS reader to gather regular information from direct competitors web sites, industry blogs, independent analysts, and the news media.
• A company who just released a new service and is expecting direct and regular feedback from chartered customers who agree to keep weblogs of their experiences with these services; and the company regularly receiving updates using RSS.
• A sales executive wanting to send regular messages to a valued customer concerning special promotions; they agree that the RSS feed is the surest, and the best answer.
• A Vice-President of marketing is organizing his company’s annual conference which includes customers, suppliers and staff. As the agenda and logistics keep changing, he uses the RSS to keep everyone updated. The updated document can be posted on the corporate intranet, and the changes can be highlighted using RSS.
• Corporate bloggers like the CEO wanting to communicate directly with staff or customers – need an audience. RSS is that quick trick for reaching out and getting a response.
• Project teams could be working on different continents, where RSS is an effective and secure way of sharing data and highlighting issues.
• When Company Documentation, including procedure manuals, employee handbooks, health and safety regulations, or price-lists need to be kept up-to-date, since they regularly change and the concerned staff needs to be notified; the updated documents could be posted on the intranet, and RSS used for highlighting changes.

Why should corporations promote the adoption of RSS technology?

There are a myriad of other uses where RSS can be put for use within a corporate environment. Broadly, RSS is best at delivering ‘FYI’ information, while e-mail is good for active – two way communication.

However, few companies have taken a policy decision to comprehensively deploy RSS within their organizations. RSS readers currently in use in companies are on account of personal initiatives alone.

Drivers for further uptake

The debate so far has only focused on the benefits of RSS versus E-mail. Increasing junk mail has given rise to even more draconian anti-spam measures. This is making it hard for the corporate managers to decide – a flood of unwanted e-mails each day, or risking with anti-spam software capable of blocking a vital message.

RSS is looking like an increasingly attractive and secure option for sending or receiving a regular report, message or an electronic newsletter within the corporate firewall, where the end user can control the flow in terms of what is received, the frequency and whether it alerts the users to the arrival of a message.

The “pull” aspect of RSS technology is appealing, and fundamentally differentiates from the “push” aspect of e-mail.