Tim Bray is getting pushback over his
call for RSS subscriber tracking.
And while I agree that we need to insure reader privacy,
I feel that proscribing ads in RSS is shortsighted.
Consider your favorite music artists.
It's common practice to distribute tour information by mail
(both e and snail).
And a RSS feed would be a natural extension of that practice.
First of all,
it is arguable that the entire feed would be one big ad.
And suppose early work previously only available on cassette
was re-issued on CD,
would you want that announced on the RSS feed?
How about an announcement that songs
are now available via the iTunes Music Store?
Now consider your local club scene.
Wouldn't it be convenient to have the schedules available by RSS?
And would you be willing to trade that convenience
for ads from those local clubs?
How about ads from your local music stores?
I agree that there are limits.
Personally,
I draw a line at pop-up windows and
cheerfully block them.
But RSS is a pull technology.
If the ads are out of line,
then vote with your feet.
Also from the November 2002 issue of the Harvard Business Review,
a discussion of the process of disruptive innovation
(The
Innovator's Dilemma
by Clayton Christensen).
The authors identify 6 stages in the process
of disruptive innovations
and
common factors that make the stage more or less likely to succeed.
- Foothold Market Entry (optional):
Can the insurgent gain a foothold
(usually in the market below the main one)?
- Main Market Entry:
Does the insurgent face high barriers to entering the main market?
- Customer attraction:
How much value can the insurgent offer relative to the incumbent?
- Customer switching:
How easily can customers switch from the incumbent to the insurgent?
- Incumbent retaliation:
Does the incumbent have high barriers to retaliationg against the insurgent?
- Incumbent displacement:
Does the innovation displace
(as opposed to augment)
incumbent products and revenues?
Entrepreneurs have been proclaiming their
latest idea a disruptive innovation
ever since Christensen's book.
It's good to have a framework to measure their claims against.
From the November 2002 issue of the Harvard Business Review:
- How much should we spend on IT?
- Which business processes should receive our IT dollars?
- Which IT capabilities need to be companywide?
- How good do our IT services really need to be?
- What security and privacy risks will we accept?
- Whom do we blame if an IT initiative fails?
None of these items come as a surprise.
But I've often found that management pays more
attention to the Harvard Business Review.
It's worth marking down the reference
just in case.
