Email vs. RSS (continued)

I first posted on this topic in October 2003 as I was starting to blog.

I posted again in the middle of last year.

And once more in the fall of last year.

I can save you the trouble on clicking on all those links.  I have been saying that RSS is too hard for the average person and that email is still the best way to get your content delivered to your customers, readers, etc.

I bring this up because many of the comments and blog linkbacks on this AOL/Goodmail issue have been saying that it’s time to kill email for commercial uses and turn to RSS.

Steve Rubel says:

Bye Bye Email Marketing, Hello RSS

Tris Hussey says in his "end of cost-effective email marketing" post.

As the Yahoo and AOL plans move forward, and expect other companies to
follow suit, and more "premium" RSS feeds appearing to replace the
traditional e-mail newsletter.

Polarman says in his "email gives way to RSS" post:

Fred, please change the business models from email to RSS.  It’s time
Email gives way to RSS.  Everything that a email delivered service can
do should be done by RSS.

And Steve Gillmor really hammers it home in his "who do you trust" post:

RSS got another big boost today when portals-in-the-headlights AOL and
Yahoo? decided they wanted to scrape some vig off of the email stream.

Well I wish I was in charge of the business models on the Internet, but I am not.  And as much as I’d like to see RSS replace email, it’s just not going to happen overnight.  RSS has to become brain dead simple to use.

When the soccer moms, myspace kids, construction workers, and grandmothers can use RSS, commercial email will give way to RSS.  Because RSS is a lot better.

But I suspect we’ve got a ways to go before RSS is truly mainstream.  But it seems like AOL introducing a paid stamps mechanism into the email business model is getting people thinking about a way around that and RSS would be a damn good one.