RSS Advertising Won't Work If Your Bribe Your Users

Steve Rubel really doesn't hide his negative feelings about advertising in RSS feeds ... and suggests publishers start bribing users with "full text news feeds gratis in exchange for opting into another that only has relevant ads."

I've heard this idea before from a good friend of mine and the result was a "heated-but-friendly" one hour debate while driving from New York to Boston.

Well, the advertising logic is simple, like it or not: most advertising is push advertising. People don't really want to see ads, unless they're totally relevant to their needs. But they see them, and sometimes they react to them --- depending on how relevant they are and on how good the advertiser is.

But the fact remains --- no one wants pushy ads, but they still work. And trust me, as someone who works with the largest DRTV company in Central and Eastern Europe, I know my traditional advertising Dollars and CPOs (Cost-per-Order) and can tell you that DRTV outsells any other advertising channel ... and it's about the pushiest form of traditional advertising there is.

Now, presume for a second that you actually bribe your users to subscribe to your advertising-only RSS feed. They might be happy to do it, but they'll never read the feed. No one wants to be subscribed to an ad-only feed, unless it's totally customized and offers amazing targeted benefits for that specific user.

(But I somehow don't imagine your advertisers providing enough relevant ads to satisfy all of your users:)

So, you get a subscriber, but you don't get a reader. What advertiser will ever want to pay for that?

And remember, it's been done before. Almost a decade ago companies were actually paying internet users to watch ads. Where did that get them? Straight to brankruptcy.