My Predictions for RSS In 2007

There has been an ongoing debate in the email marketing industry for the past couple of years regarding RSS (Real Simple Syndication).  With just 3% Internet user penetration, proponents of the medium say RSS will replace email marketing because it is 100% opt-in and has 100% deliverability.  True, these two characteristics make for very compelling arguments however most proponents of RSS overlook four major characteristics of email that trump RSS; personalization, data collection, portability and two-way communication.  These characteristics will sustain email's marketing vitality until another technology comes along and does a better job.

That said, it doesn't mean RSS doesn't have a place in the marketer's arsenal.  With Microsoft's launch of IE7 yesterday, RSS will find its way to many more Internet users in 2007.  When there is massive market adoption of RSS, marketers who rely on traditional batch and blast email marketing will want to start looking to RSS for this task. 

My Prediction:
Toward the end of 2007, traditional batch and blasters will BEGIN to consider RSS on a mass scale for marketing purposes in addition to using email.