Have you unsubscribed from all of your Email newsletters and are you reading all things RSS instead?
Please assist me in gaining an understanding if my own habits concerning Email newsletters/ RSS have already crossed the chasm. I will collect your feedback and publish on http://www.felgner.ch. Thanks for contributing ...
Clarification added March 10, 2008:
WIll ask for permission before publication personally ...
Clarification added May 7, 2008:
Your feedback will be published on http://www.felgner.ch/2008/05/email_newsletters_social_bookmarking.html. Please give me a short note in case you do not concur.
Answers (18)
Marcelo F.
Business Director at IMR
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Personally I did from about 80% of it and the ones remains coming in my inbox because they don't have the RSS option. The RSS allows me to better filter the content I'm receiving and unsubscribe when it's not corresponding to what I'm expecting from it.
Regards,
Marcelo
I prefer to have all news feeds come through google reader.
This ensures that when I am ready to read industry news I can do so in one go without the constant interruption of another story coming through
The use of RSS by end users who typically read the content contained within a newsletter will vary.
RSS for many non-technically inclined folks is still confusing and less convenient than simply opening an email message (click on an orange RSS button and you'll just see code - if you aren't expecting it you will be under the impression it's 'broken'.)
Using an RSS reader wont make the content any better or the source more valid, but it does give you some flexibility as an end user to create your own edition if the method suits you.
An e-mail message comparatively speaking, can be read easily by anyone, assuming its a newsletter you subscribed to and are therefore receiving it from a trusted source.
The real thing to focus on as an end-user is are you receiving targeted content that is relevant for your business/personal needs? When you subscribe to a newsletter - RSS fed or e-mail - the publisher assumes you want to receive the subscription based content on an on-going basis.
If your newsletter content isn't up to snuff - email or RSS flavors - make sure you either update your subscription preferences or unsubscribe as your needs/interests change over time. Be sure to provide feedback to the publishers as well.
John P.
Business Development Professional
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Short answer - no. Reason - not all of the good news is available via RSS. RSS is good for some, but not for a lot. Most of the time, the RSS posts do not abstract correctly and I tend to dismiss a lot of good information whereas email does give me the ability to scan quickly and get what I need out of the content. Google news is ok, but the ability to manage the volume by a decent filter mechanism is lacking.
So the bottom line is I use a number of methods to keep up with current events in any given realm.
Bex W.
Senior Creative & Owner at Blink Design Studios Ltd
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Hi Harald,
Email is still my method of choice - more companies use it and also there are a lot of heavily personalised email newsletters (Amazon and Boots being good examples) which try to only send relevent content to me and use my demographic details and past purchases to weed out content I don't want.
For this reason I am sticking predominantly on the email side for now.
Hope this helps,
Bex.
Ray M.
Energy expert, educator, award winning sculptor
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Still an email dinosaur.
As the tide changes I imagine I too will migrate in that direction.
Yes, I have unsubscribed from all email newsletters where a RSS alternative is available. I found myself reading more this way.
For email newsletters, if I didn't have time to read it within the week it arrives, I just don't bother anymore, I simply delete them. But for RSS feeds, I keep going back to read my old feeds as soon as I find time.
There are a couple of web sites (that I subscribed to) that still use email newsletters and have no (or poorly categorized) RSS feeds and it kinds of annoy me.
Shirley
Mirek P.
Strategist, Blogger, owner of OPEN4net (pharma e-marketing) & Blog Ninja (marketing in the blogosphere)
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I'm considering at least a substantial switch to RSS
I still receive some newsletters, but in the last few months I have switched the majority of my subscriptions to the RSS format. I love it, and am subscribed to almost 40 feeds - many of which are focused on the online marketing industry. My reader of choice is Feed Demon found at www.newsgator.com.
Links:
I have switched to RSS feeds for all of the mailing lists that I am a part of that offer RSS. There are two or three that I get via email still but the majority are on my Google homepage.
RSS, for those of you not in the know, stands for Really Simple Syndication and is a method of delivering/publishing frequently updated content such as blog entries, news headlines, and other such items.
The major browsers support RSS, and can make using RSS quite easy to use, however, what if I am usnig another computer? My RSS feeds are setup by site and by computer. Oops - I may not be able to read my feeds.
Some sites allow you to log in and then recall/save all your RSS feeds and use their site as the RSS reader source.
Email allows me to open the news on any computer without logging into another site. Email just still seems a bit more convienent, though I do subscribe to a couple RSS feeds - on one computer.
Links:
Alisa O.
Process Improvement Specialist at Knight Cancer Institute at the Oregon Health and Sciences University
Best Answers in: Business Development (1)
I use RSS where I can find it. I have targeted my surveillance to sites that provide RSS just because it's so darned convenient.
Nick B.
Cybercrime | Fraud | Social Media Threats | Brand Protection | Online Reputation | Privacy | Identity
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Short answer: No.
Reason: RSS removes context, warmth and design. There is no relationship possible with a newsfeed. OTOH a well-written, well laid out newsletter can add value beyond the pure "content" and can even be something that one gladly anticipates!
Note: I grant permission for this to be published :-)
Dennis N.
Business Development at LOOKNorth Centre of Excellence
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I am moving as many of my email newsletters to RSS feeds as I can. The risk that something is not captured properly is outweighed by the convenience and efficiency of RSS. I can organize feeds and scan quickly. Having said this, there are a couple newsletters that I feel are critical to my business which I continue to receive in email format.
I subscribe to both email newsletters and RSS feeds. In most cases, I'll subscribe to the RSS feed if it's available; if not, I'll sign up for the newsletter.
There are some sites, however, where I sign up for both. One example is BNET. I love the daily newsletter (the layout, the content), but I don't want to miss other news items that's coming through their feeds. Another example is Amazon.com.They understand the personalization concept well, so I don't want to give up on the newsletters. Their RSS feeds keep me up-to-speed on everything else. LinkedIn is another good example. I stay on top of my network action through the RSS feed, but I also enjoy the newsletters that come out occasionally.
Just recently, I upgraded to MS Office 2007 at work and imported my work-related RSS feeds from Google Reader. Outlook doesn't have all the bells & whistles of Google Reader (nor is it its intent), but it does allow me to manage the articles that come in just like I would with my email. I can share articles/feeds, categorize/flag them, archive them, etc. I still use Google Reader, though, to stay on top of all my non-work-related feeds.
Hope this helps,
Tamara
No, while I use RSS, I'm still using Email more than RSS.
As in aside, in fact, I'm finding that I'm using more and more media merging technolgies like FriendFeed.com because by the nature of my roles and interests, I need to use every form of input I can get.
Geoff B.
Management and Technical Consultant
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Depends on the quality of the feed.
Some places transmit an RSS feed that contains all (or nearly all) of the content of a newsletter, in a readable format. In those cases, it's easy to make the switch.
A depressing number of places either (a) give me no more than a headline and a paragraph, expecting me to go to their site to read, (b) format the content so that it looks like an EDI transmission or (c) add all sorts of extraneous nonsense to the feed. For those, I stay with e-mail.
It also depends on the tool you use to read RSS. I use Thunderbird, which makes it very easy to collect feeds and store them in separate buckets. There is very little practical difference for me between RSS and e-mail, hence I'm less likely to switch.
Timeliness is also an issue. For time-critical stuff (say, bug notifications or virus alerts), I would pick RSS so I can get them immediately, rather than wait for a daily or weekly digest. If not, I can wait.
And personal taste is an issue. I find it depressing to have an RSS bucket with 450 unread items. It seems less daunting to have 20 unread issues of a newsletter-- even if it has the same 450 items.
