ROI for RSS by Ron Lichty

One of my Avenue A | Razorfish colleagues, Tracy Cohen, pointed me to a great thread on Charlene Li's blog about RSS.

Charlene, a Forrester analyst and author of Forrester's blogging reports, prompted readers for examples of how marketers use RSS (aside from blogs, of course). As examples, she cited Purina's RSS feeds for dog and cat care advice (which also happens to have exceptionally clear RSS usage instructions that could serve as a model for yours), and RSS feeds of coupon and bargain sites like Slick Deals and TechBargains.

Her readers responded:
* Burpee's seeds: product specials, newsletter content
* Dealazon: Amazon's API plus RSS
* US Cycling: news
* IBM Press Room: updates
* Tech Recipes: tutorial updates, information
* Deals on the Web: stuff
* Amazon deals: stuff
* Frontline: PBS - TV programming and news
* Luftgrop: travel
* Continental: travel
* Pheedz: travel
* Deals on the Web
* Apple: PR
* The Corcoran Group (NYC real estate): open houses, newest listings
* Craigslist: everything on the site
* SmartTravelDeals.com: travel sales and offers
* PBS: Frontline
* simplyhired.com: new jobs that fit the criteria you set
* MarCom:Interactive : marketing communications trend briefings, trend tours, new webcasts, and news
* Gallup: their content
* Intel: press releases, products, software updates, reseller center, IT operations and IT for classrooms

(If you want to subscribe to any of the above youself, there are URLs to most on Charlene's blog.)

Unusual uses of blogs:

Charlene notes, in her November Forrester report, a number of less-obvious uses of blogs, including:
* Nike, with Gawker Media: an "adverblog"
* Lee Dungarees: "90 Ft. Babe" blog chronicling the adventures of a clearly fictional giantess looking for a date
* Microsoft recruiting: what the company looks for in inbound product managers