Sigh. Microsoft’s marketers will never learn

1. I think that email is still more pervasive than RSS subscriptions, if you’re targetting the masses rather than geeks.

2. RSS feeds work better for high frequency updates. Email subscriptions work better for bi-weekly or less frequent updates.

3. I use RSS Bandit for my RSS reading. I’m subscribed to probably 250 RSS feeds (maybe more). But I only check 5 of them on a daily basis. I have no clue what’s going on in the other 245 feeds. If Zune just had RSS subscriptions, that would be one more RSS feed that I’d never bother to check. But my email subscriptions are a different story. I have no idea how many email subscriptions I have (I guess about a dozen, from sources like Apple, Microsoft, ACDSee, Stanford, etc), but whenever the various email subscriptions provide updated content, I do read them because it’s provided as ordinary email, which I check daily.

So you see, RSS and Email have their places, and proclaiming RSS to be superior, no ifs, ands, or buts, is foolhardy.

Scoble, I know that you’re all about RSS and blogs, but declaring Zune to be dead (i.e. Apple has nothing to worry about) because of lack of RSS feeds is buying into your own hype. I really think you need to be more open-minded yourself. RSS isn’t everything.

True, RSS is better, I hate more junk mail. BUT I still know very little people that subscribe to RSS feeds, the concept is still foreign to those that just browse and read their email.

So do both!!!

Why is this such a battle for everyone to understand? You do what the users want. And many users want RSS.

At every audience I’ve spoken to there have been RSS users in there.

It’s the same thing as saying “we won’t support Firefox.” Yeah, IE still has more users, but any marketer that tells even a few percent of the audience to go pound sand is telling the market a lot.

Plus, RSS users tell MANY times more people about things than email users do.

MollyC: if you subscribe to RSS and don’t check them, then why stay subscribed? In email it all comes into one place and you gotta deal with it. It makes you less productive. But, if you’re into being less productive that’s up to you.

When I tried to read the comments at the Zune blog, I got 404 errors.

What was I going to say? The blogger, Cesar Menendez, said he wants to discuss “music, music culture, videos, cool bands, things like that.” I think a good place to start would be with iTunes, the iTunes Music Store and the iPod. After all, Apple currently owns the market and will for the foreseeable future. IF Cesar is not allowed to say the iWords, then the Zune blog should not be taken seriously.

Also, since Microsoft is apparently targeting the young and hip demographic, I think it should have chosen a youthful, good looking guy (or better yet, gal) as Zune blogger. Cesar does not give off the right vibe.

Podesta: hmmm, they are working here for me.

Yeah, picking the right influentials to start a marketing campaign does seem to be important, doesn’t it? (That’s how MySpace’s CTO told me they got so big — they made sure their first users and employees were hip Hollywood influentials).

But, then, I would rather have a real employee answering my questions, not a pretty face for pretty face’s sake.

It seems to me that the kind of audience that invites you to speak is pre-disposed to your brand of kool-aid. This data point is less persuasive than it might have otherwise been.

When you can start claiming that your last six Denny’s waitresses even knew what RSS was, your argument starts holding water. I’ll bet they’ve heard of email.

I agree that RSS is potentially more convienent than email. I don’t really think that not having RSS is going to tank something at this point in history. Why they didn’t do both, I don’t know, but if they could only do one, they certianly made the correct choice.

What’s disturbing about the comingzune site is that it isn’t even registered to Microsoft, but by proxy, anonymously. Ahem. Ahem.

I betting this is like the Origami project. All hype, no substance.

When Zune is released, people will come to the table at the Microsoft showfloor, look at the MP3 player, and say “But where’s Zune?”

“Here it is,” the Microserf will say proudly on behalf of his corporate masters.

“Oh.” And they’ll walk away.

BTW, the music (Regina Spektor, Us on that site is disturbing given Microsoft’s megolomaniacal leanings.

They made a statue of us
And it put it on a mountain top
Now tourists come and stare at us
Blow bubbles with their gum
Take photographs for fun, for fun

We wear our scarves just like a noose
But not ’cause we want eternal sleep
And though our parts are slightly used
New ones are slave labor you can keep

Not a good choice at all.

Bill: you might think that, but you’d be wrong. RSS is going mainstream. It’s coming in IE 7 next year. Maybe normal people won’t know they are using RSS, but RSS is all over the place in Windows Vista.

Your argument will hold up if you claim normal people don’t go to the BBC: http://www.bbc.co.uk/?ok (they have RSS) or don’t read any of these things: http://radio.xmlstoragesystem.com/rcsPublic/rssHotlist

Remember, if you made decisions on this basis, you would have avoided the Web. After all, no one before 1994 used THAT!

>Why they didn’t do both, I don’t know, but if they could only do one, they certianly made the correct choice.

I also totally disagree here. Who are they trying to reach online? Influencers!!!

Influencers overwhelmingly have already switched to RSS.

Why are influencers so important? Did you already forget the lesson of what happened when I quit Microsoft? I told 15 people my story (none of whom were professional journalists). The story got about 50 million impressions the PR agencies say (you should have seen the Word doc that Waggener Edstrom prepared on me). All because I told 15 influencers.

Influencers are EXTREMELY important to get to support you. Google understands this at a deep level.

Apple understands this at a deep level.

Microsoft still has a ways to go.

“MollyC: if you subscribe to RSS and don’t check them, then why stay subscribed? In email it all comes into one place and you gotta deal with it. It makes you less productive. But, if you’re into being less productive that’s up to you.”
————————–

Robert, I subscribed to a lot of RSS feeds because I encountered them (mostly blogs) by way of links (many from your own blog), and they strike my fancy at the time that I first visit them, so I subscribe. But I don’t bother to check them in the future. Similarly, I’m a member of many Yahoo Groups and am subscribed to many Google Groups (i.e. Usenet newsgroups), but I don’t check those either. Every so often, I do unsubscribe to these things, but I usually don’t bother.

Your question had a very arrogant tone BTW. You have no idea who I am or whether I’m “productive”. Come down off your high horse. Celebrity has gone to your head. You are in NO position to judge me as to how I subscribe to RSS feeds, email mailing lists, newsgroups, or anything else. Good grief.

And who’s to say that they won’t do both RSS and email? Zune was just officially acknowledged TODAY. There’s only a single measly viral marketing site so far and a blog from an MS Zune employee. Let the marketing develop before already condemning it.

You say Google and Apple understand the concept of “influencers” at a deep level yet you criticize both companies at every turn for not catering to that same crowd.

I don’t see RSS on Apple’s iPod marketing pages and I certainly don’t see a plethora of Apple blogs. Yet Apple’s marketing is widely lauded as epitomizing what tech marketing should be. It certainly seems to reach an audience that most marketers covet.

You’ve never addressed this in your blog — in fact you’ve avoided it every time it’s been brought up. What’s most offensive about your blog is that you present arguments that could be intelligently argued — and then offer a position that represents the lowest common denominator.

Your talk about the Xbox’s business model is ridiculous. The first Xbox followed the razor and the blades business model yet proceeded to lose $4B (yes billion) dollars. Yet this same business model is going to result in profitability for the 360? Already, Microsoft is behind their shipment projections. As I said when the 360 launched, MS has already lost. They just don’t know it yet.

I’m not trying to take away from blogs and RSS. They are significant. But to position them in this revolutionary light does both a disservice. They are just another tool to reach out to your audience. Your five minutes are running out — best of luck.

Molly: >Your question had a very arrogant tone BTW. You have no idea who I am or whether I’m “productive”.

Sorry, I’m just going off of your own words. You say you subscribe to RSS feeds, but then forget them, but you stay involved with your email. I find that to be bizarre behavior. I should have been more inquisitive rather than nonplussed, sorry. Have you spoken with more than 4,000 people about this topic? Have you blogged about it for years? So, who’s arrogant here? I’m trying to tell you that — based on my experiences — you’re wrong. You’re trying to tell me you’re right. Yes, our egos are clashing. That’s OK, it’s part of finding out who’s right. At the end of the day one of us will be shown to be right. Maybe it’s you. I can accept that. But I’ve done my homework and been around the world talking with both industry insiders and everyday users and RSS is kicking ass and taking no prisoners. Email sucks cause of spam, cause of overload (I have hundreds of emails coursing through here every day). Cause of marketers that send me stupid crap I didn’t ask for (Microsoft is one of the better companies, but at Fawcette they sold email addresses to other companies, which gets you tons of spam).

>You say Google and Apple understand the concept of “influencers” at a deep level yet you criticize both companies at every turn for not catering to that same crowd.

Every company has its things it does well and not so well. Microsoft does some things with influencers VERY well. Like MSN Search Champs.

But it does some other things NOT so well (like not supporting non-IE browsers, or not having RSS feeds.

Same with Apple and Google. Companies are made up of people. For every person who “gets it” inside a big company there are 14 who don’t (and that doesn’t change even if you redefine “gets it” to be different).

>Yet Apple’s marketing is widely lauded as epitomizing what tech marketing should be.

Really? Apple has, what, 5% market share? If that’s so successful then I’m sorry, I don’t see it. Now, iPod? Absolutely. Apple hit it out of the park there.

>You’ve never addressed this in your blog — in fact you’ve avoided it every time it’s been brought up.

Wow, you’ve read every single word I’ve posted over the past 5.5 years? Damn, you’re good!

>Your five minutes are running out — best of luck.

Say something nice about me at my funeral. I won’t be there. Thanks!

By the way, you do realize why they are doing email and not RSS, right?

Someone has to justify the expense to their bosses.

RSS isn’t as easy to quantify. Are those readers? Well, no. They are subscribers, but some of those subscribers, like Molly, just subscribed and never look at their feeds. And, anyway, you never really know much about who is subscribing.

But, with email? I can see their domains and make some assumptions. I can also track and see if the email is opened (web bugs). And, anyway, if someone signs up for an email it’s a lot more real than if someone subscribes to a Web feed.

This is a marketer justifying the expense of the campaign to his/her bosses. But I really don’t care about that.

If they have news that’s really important they’ll put it on the RSS feed.

We took a bit of heat at Microsoft because we didn’t do the whole “collect emails for marketing reasons” deal for Channel 9. But I notice that Channel 9 passed by every single marketing effort inside Microsoft and, the month I left, had 4.3 million unique visitors.

This RSS idea? It has legs.

Robert: you said something like “I didn’t like the person I was becoming” when you were getting to be unhappy at Microsoft.

If your writing is anything to go by you must already be very unhappy at your new job.

Or is it just that MollyC’s comment hit a little too close to home?

I’m sorry, but you really *are* in no position to judge other people. And as for RSS vs. e-mail: perhaps you should get out more.

I doubt RSS has the necessary traction in smalltown USA, but I’m *positive* it hasn’t in the rest of the world, say, in Belgium where I live.

And “offer both”? Uh, yeah sure. Complicate things right from the start.

>If your writing is anything to go by you must already be very unhappy at your new job.

I haven’t even started, really, and am on vacation. My first “real” day is August 14th. So, my writing tonight has almost nothing to do with my new job. Maybe the stress of a move and all that.

>And as for RSS vs. e-mail: perhaps you should get out more.

You sound a lot like the Atari guy I just linked to who thought personal computers weren’t gonna be important so told Woz and Jobs to go do that thing someplace else.

Again, what is important about RSS is that it reaches influentials. Influentials are those people who drive society. You didn’t miss how my story went from 15 conversations with influentials to 180 newspapers around the world within 36 hours, right?

There’s a reason why news about new companies doesn’t break from Montana very often (although, even there, everyone at the TechRanch says they use RSS).

>I’m sorry, but you really *are* in no position to judge other people.

And you are, right? Got it.

Really? Apple has, what, 5% market share? If that’s so successful then I’m sorry, I don’t see it.

What’s BMW’s marketshare? You bought one anyway.

Amiga used to have 20%+ marketshare in Europe. 5% marketshare is a huge achievement today, especially if the competition is a convicted monopolist that has spent decades proprietizing APIs, sabotaging third-party software and excluding competitors from entry into the market.

Finally, size of marketshare is an unsatisfying measure of success – that’s why Microsoft employees are by and large such a miserable lot. The quality of the product and utility comes first. If that means niche market and 0.1% marketshare that’s fine. Good products with good management can be profitable even with that level of market penetration.

When I tried to read the comments at the Zune blog, I got 404 errors.

The Zune blog is a disaster. Right in the second sentence, the link to the comingzune.com site is badly formed (not a complete URL like it’s supposed to be but a relative link). Bad form. Incompetence, really. Did the blogger fail to test his own post?

The hard skills are important, perhaps even more important when any kind of mass media is involved.

>I don’t see RSS on Apple’s iPod marketing pages and I certainly don’t see a plethora of Apple blogs.

Apple has RSS right on their home page. So does Microsoft’s home page.

Hmmm, now I know a few things about Microsoft. The really good marketers get to work on the home page. The really crappy ones? They don’t.

It seems to me that the good marketers at both Apple and Microsoft understand the importance of RSS.

Not to mention that Microsoft’s biggest products next year will have RSS aggregators built into them (Office and Windows).

Anon: good points about marketshare.

>What’s BMW’s marketshare?

Of what? Luxury car sales? Based on the numbers of the things I see in Silicon Valley, quite high. But if you go to Montana you barely will find any.

Heck, people PAY for email newsletters, the most-excellent majestic Mary Jo for one…and tons of finance and expert trend spotting types of email newsletters.

In my best Weird Al Yoda Yoda voice…

Remember, strength flows from the content. But beware, formats. The dark side are they. Once you start down the dark medium as message path, forever will it dominate your destiny. Content creates it, makes it grow. Its energy surrounds us and binds us.

Do the links on Zune Insider Blog work for any of you? Two of three links in the first post don’t work and Permalink, Comments and TrackBack also don’t…

I don’t care, if the offer RSS on Coming Zune or not… This crappy page doesn’t let me mute the music or skip the animation to come to the point of the “site”… Can’t skip? Close Tab and forget…

Hey Robert, this is probably just a cultural thing. Probably arrogance and incessant name-dropping go over a lot better in your neck of the woods.

From over here it looks as if you’ve gone off on an extremely juvenile trolling trip.

Why do I think that? It’s like refactoring, Robert. Bad smells. Like this typical exchange:

>> I’m sorry, but you really *are* in no
>> position to judge other people.
> And you are, right? Got it.

I agree with MollyC that you are in no position to judge people, and suddenly that means I *am* in such a position?

For all you know, I may be. And even if I weren’t: why should I be? If I say I don’t like the food in a restaurant, do I necessarily have to be a good cook?

You’re acting the bully, Robert. It was fun while you were at Microsoft, kicking against the shins and all that. It isn’t so much fun anymore now.

Running the risk of sounding incredibly condescending here, and no patronising intended, but: copy-paste your last couple of dozen replies to comments (heck, couple of hundred), and have someone you know and respect read them.

And then listen to what those people will tell you, and act on their advice.

The original point of my post was about Microsoft trying to be cool… and almost making it–but not quite. I give them points for heading in the right direction. Robert latched onto the RSS thing, but that wasn’t in my post.

Email signups are less trustworthy than RSS. I can delete a feed and know it’s been deleted. Once a megacorporation has your email, however, you can never be sure what will be done with it.

It was Zune’s marketing message that bugged me, not whether the signup was email or RSS. If I hadn’t been so turned off by the forced “We’re all friends” BS, I might have signed up. I’ve got Gmail. I can label, filter, and trash anything I want and not worry about it.

Microsoft hasn’t learned their lessons even in traditional marketing, let alone the kind of real person unmarketing that we’re shifting to. The Office 2K7 team’s blogs are great! And yet Microsoft goes and does this lame old-school marketing thing–ironically for a product aimed at an audience that would respond better to blogs. They should’ve given Zune to a bunch of kids and let ‘em loose on MySpace and YouTube: influencers, indeed.

And Robert, I have been reading your blog for a couple years, now, and I think your comments on this post seem a bit harsh. We all have bad days, but you’ll be a better man if own up to it.

Sorry: I meant to say “if you own up to it.”