I’m glad Jeff Jarvis pointed to this report again. Here’s an idea.

None of the newspapers include ads in their RSS feeds. That’s a good thing, as I’m a firm believer that the RSS item is the ad.

But many people do read ads in Newspapers. Some look for grocery coupons or department store sales.

I’d like to see how many Newspapers are providing RSS feeds of print ads. They key is to tag them well; fashion, restaurants etc.

A lot of Tribune’s ( I work for them ) print ads go into ShopLocal.com, along with ads from Gannett and McClatchy the other part-owners of the service.

I don’t see any RSS feeds there. If that’s true, it’s a shame.

Instead, they try to stuff them into mini-sites or worse, mock-print flipbooks .

A long time ago, I suggested personal RSS feeds using SSE in a creative way that could create customized, two-way marketing conversations (I’ll post more later), but I backed off because for editorial content, I agreed it added little value to the user and meant registering.

But for people explicitly looking for commercial content targeted at their wants, they seem to be perfect.

Until we have decent attention filters, this seems to be the best option we can offer the users, and I think they would recognize that and participate.

Then it wouldn’t be long before the local merchants realize they don’t need big graphic print ads and should just converse directly with the users.

But the newspapers would still be adding value by having an aggregated and targeted audience. Like they did in the old days but in a way that makes sense online.

I have yet to even see an email program of this nature from the Newspapers, but RSS works much better anyway, for obvious reasons.

Conclusion: Forget about your old model of interuption and embrace permission marketing. Build an audience and connect buyers and sellers in the most efficient way for the users, not the advertisers. They will appreciate it and you will profit from it.

Trackback URI | Comments RSS