Want to make a newshound swoon? Say RSS and AJAX in the same sentence. That’s how easy it was for Yahoo to bowl ‘em over with the release of Yahoo RSS Mail + Yahoo Alerts. Yahooligans figure a webmail service fortified with an event alerter is the perfect vehicle to suck users into a multi-layered Yahoo dependency.
You’ll have a tough time finding an RSS reader as… basic… as Yahoo’s RSS Mail release. Fact is, you can trip over more feature-rich RSS aggregators for email clients at TUCOWS that you can simply plug-in to Outlook or others. (No need to search for Thunderbird or Opera extensions. They’re already there).
That’s one of the reasons Yahoo Alerts was part of the announcement. It helps info-addicts spam themselves whenever a pre-determined Good/Bad/Interesting Thing happens. It’s important to note that Yahoo RSS Mail/Yahoo Alerts is not an RSS-based emailing system. Despite all the headline-grabbing RSS-replaces-email chatter, the system still requires email, instant messaging or SMS to let you know something happened. But the masses couldn’t care less.
Yahoo research shows that just 4% know or care about RSS, which is substantially more users than those who care about SMTP, AJAX, SMB, SOA or other gears of progress.
So where’s the news? Yahoo honchos list four reasons why Yahoo RSS Mail is newsworthy:
- Proximity. Folks spend most of the day mired in email clients. They’re already using them.
- Convenience. Upon finding an interesting item, users can easily spam it to friends & colleagues.
- Familiarity. With nothing new to learn, users can easily add RSS to the email world.
- 227 Million. With that many mail subscribers, even Yahoo’s bowel movements make earth shaking news.
In the end, Yahoo RSS Mail Client is not an RSS Mail system. It’s just a webmail client that’s been bolted to your typical, run-of-the-mill, everyday RSS news reader… along with 227 million subscribers. And that makes it news.
Background:
- Analyzing the New Yahoo RSS Whitepaper for Marketers; Rok Hrastnik; marketingstudies.net; 10 October 2005.
- OddPosts RSS Lives Again in Yahoo Mail; Om Malik’s Blog; 30 November 2005.
- RSS Email Flunks The (Law) Suit Test; Email Battles; 2 November 2005.
- Yahoo! expands RSS services to Mail (beta) and Alerts; Charlene Li’s Blog; 29 November 2005.
- Yahoo! RSS Goes Mainstream with Yahoo! Mail and Alerts; John Furrier; Podtech; 30 November 2005.
- Yahoo Will Add RSS to Mail Service; Shelley Solheim; eWeek; 30 November 2005.
4 comments
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December 8th, 2005 at 4:54 pm
benbear
I like Yahoo’s email more than GMail. It’s easier for me to use.
December 9th, 2005 at 10:32 am
ToddMac
Yahoo’s RSS reader is pretty Plain-Jane. I don’t get what the hype is about.
December 9th, 2005 at 11:00 am
olGuard
i agree that yahoo’s rss reader isn’t incredibly feature-rich compared to a lot of other products. however, the fact that they’ve endorsed rss and promoted it to millions of users is a good thing. it will drive adoption and probably create sales for smaller vendors.
December 9th, 2005 at 4:39 pm
ubuntu_lover
Gmail has a new feature called “web clips.” It’s an RSS reader too, but you wouldn’t know by the name. They couldn’t put “RSS” in the name, because everyone would know what the heck they were talking about. It wouldn’t sound special, and everyone knows that, if it’s Google, it must be especially ingenious, not just another RSS reader.