IRSS - the evolution of RSS?

It is not often that I write about Silverpop - a company that provides enterprise class email marketing solutions and one that I have worked at for 9 months now. This has not been because I have nothing to say, but more because I have been afraid of turning this blog into a marketing website for email marketing and Silverpop’s products (I am a fan so I choose instead to leave this blog for talking about the Internet, where I want it to go and what other companies are doing to move the medium forward). I think in hindsight this is a mistake and I should talk more about email marketing, especially as I am a huge proponent for it (I will try and avoid turning this blog into a marketing page though!).

So, what has caused me to look at this? RSS. IRSS (Individualised RSS) to be precise. It is an evolution of the RSS standard which will allow content to be published in a way that can be targeted, measured and personalised. This means that every subscriber to an RSS feed can receive unique content meant only to him or her or a specific group.

Silverpop have released a product called RSS Direct, which takes advantage of IRSS and combines it with an enterprise class email marketing solution. This means that marketers can start using RSS in the same way they already do with email such as tracking, content personalisation, segmentation, event triggered posts, enterprise level security etc.

More than that though, you can put an end to phishing emails by only communicating through an IRSS feed. This is one benefit I think will certainly change the way companies communicate with their customers. A bank for example can use IRSS to guarantee delivery and the authenticity of its messages. Right now there is a chance that a message cannot get through or that the customer will think it is a fake. IRSS means that not only will the specific individual see the message but also the individual will know that there is no danger of it being faked by those pesky phishers.

There are plenty of other scenarios I can think of but they will have to wait till another day!