Branded RSS Aggregators Gaining Publicity

Wired.com just published an article further publicizing branded RSS aggregators, prompted by the moves of some major traditional media publishers.

"The Los Angeles Times, the Denver Post and British newspaper the Guardian will soon offer stand-alone newsreader software for reading stories on their own websites and those of their competitors.

At the end of this month, the Denver Post will offer News Hound, a Denver Post-branded newsreader based on NewsGator, a newsreader that displays stories syndicated through RSS."

The article also discloses two of the key reasons why larger companies should in fact be considering branded RSS aggregators:

"Since readers already graze for news from many sources, providing a Denver Post-branded application gives the newspaper increased visibility, according to Asakawa. "It increases the utility of the newspaper," he said.

News Hound will enable the Denver Post to establish a "stickier relationship with readers," said Greg Reinacker, founder and chief technical officer of NewsGator, which is co-developing the newsreader."

The natural results of a "stickier relationship" is foremost expanding the brand and facilitating a positive brand experience. By turning its website in to a more general content consumption channel, media sites are increasing the power of its brand, while actually using the content of others to do it. People really won't notice where the content is coming from, but will rather remember and have a "personal" relationship with the actual content provider.

And not to mention additional advertising revenues, of course.

However, the branded RSS aggregator market might stumble in to large obstacles when Microsoft launches the next version of its IE browser, with integrated RSS functionality. The next edition of IE actually has the power to simplify RSS to the level of bookmarks for the "average" internet consumer.

If that happens, it's highly questionable whether internet consumers will be looking for other RSS aggregators, since the "default" might be so inviting. We'll just have to wait and see.

Wired.com also raises another important point:

"But not all publishers are interested in delivering RSS feeds or having their headlines displayed on other websites. In March, Agence France-Presse filed suit against Google for displaying headlines and article summaries on the Google News site.

Ferguson said publishers fall into two camps. Those who view syndicating headlines as a revenue opportunity and are setting up RSS feeds, and those such as Agence France-Presse who are worried about controlling how and where their headlines appear."

But the problem might be greater than we all think. If certain online content aggregators in fact do achieve the majority of the market share, things might turn out worse than expected for "small" publishers and marketers. The "small" in this case means even larger corporations with a lesser influence than Yahoo! or traditional media online.

To further explore the possible pitfalls, take a look at an article, titled "The RSS Wars", I wrote about the subject about a month ago.