Russell Beattie shares an insightful post on the “understated” RSS+SMS capabilities of Yahoo!'s new Alert Services:
Yahoo! just enabled every blog and news service in the world to update 200 million American mobile consumers instantly. Every feed, from any source online is now a potential mobile alert service, instantly notifying readers, customers and users of any updates, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week anywhere they happen to be.
He goes on to highlight some scenarios where RSS+SMS is enabling info junkies to get a new fix via their mobile phones, including everything from blog post updates and news item watches, to customized tag notifications and photo alerts. It's a good read, and while you have to keep in mind Beattie's own biases (i.e., he's Yahoo!'s mobile guru), his post really showcases the potential of RSS+SMS. Additionally, what jumps out at me as I read this are the implications this sort of technology and thinking has for Pull PR.
Case in point, as PR teams continue to explore ways they can syndicate corporate content (e.g., via company blogs, podcasts and RSS-enabled news rooms), a very simple, albeit fundamental tactic will be to provide audiences with a set of “recommend” RSS feeds too -- ideally, tailored to their interests (e.g., product news, investor news, partnership news, etc.). With these RSS feeds in place, the audience can choose how they would prefer to consume this content -- and company's like Yahoo! are making the act of content consumption easier every day.
Related Posts:
New School PR & Thinking Like a Media Network
May We Have Your Attention, Please?
[Disclosure: Yahoo! is a Voce client]


Comments