I’ve always dreamed of RSS replacing email as a spam-free person-to-person communication device.

Adam Curry says it’s not possible, though I don’t see why anyone would believe him. I’ve never heard  or read Dave Winer talk about if this was possible.

For me, I originally thought a system of RSS+SSE might be possible for this, except for the fact that it would seem no better than email because of SPAM issues, so why bother?

I met Jim Moore at OPMLCamp a few months back and recently sent him a note. He’s using a service called Spam Snag to pro-actively stop SPAM.

I got a reply and had to click-through before my email and any subsequent emails got through.

It occurred to me that by building that into the protocol, we could create a better, stronger, faster messaging service right on top of RSS.

I’ll think on this some more. I did have some wine with dinner, so I may be missing an obvious  reason why this won’t be feasible.

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Jarvis notes the changing role of journalists:

A change of the role of journalists — and their relationship with the public — from owner sof the story to moderators, editors, enablers, and educators.

Networked news is good, but “SharedNews” is better. Well, that’s just a term I coined some time back to talk about two-way RSS or what might be called RSS Groups.

This is where everyone has access to a feed, much like an email or usenet group. It’s a more sophisticated way to structure a group blog, and it can be completely distributed. Check out SkinnyFarm for an example.

I’ll remind Jeff about a post he wrote about SSE , and I commented on it.

If RSS is two-way, like it can be, then networked news collaboration can be taken to a much higher level.

I’m digressing somewhat, because the real issue here is that news organizations must realize they need to approach the conversation from a peer level.

It’s no longer a lecture, where audience members must raise their hand to contribute. It’s one big dinner party, and no-one likes the guy who tries to dominate the conversation.

That’s why Dave Winer is right about exclusivity. There is an implicit understanding that we are all equal on the web, and any attempts to create a class system will fail. Exclusive 2.0 conferences are making the same mistake that the Old Regimes made.

It’s also why the user-generated content strategies of news organizations are driving me nuts.

By it’s nature, it’s treating the site-user as a lesser voice.

It’s as if newspapers think users will feel priveliged to get their stuff on the organization’s website.

While that may be somewhat true for the New York Times, I don’t think the local newspaper in many towns holds that kind of reverence, especially with the younger follks.

Their friends are more impressed with their MySpace page, than with your poorly designed, million dollar content management system.

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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.

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