One of the great emerging applications for FeedBurner (and RSS as a channel) is commerce. In the first wave of applications, publishers have used RSS to push content (mostly text like blog posts, news articles, etc) to feed readers. This past week, we got a glimpse of the future of RSS. Geffen announced a new rev of its website that embeds and leverages FeedBurner to link its artists directly to their fan base. Not only will this allow artists and the media companies like Geffen to push tour dates, photos and posts/news out to fans, but also songs and videos. Leveraging FeedBurner’s Feed Flare, they can also embed calls to action like buy this song, link to MySpace or rate it in iTunes. CNBC and MSNBC both ran stories on TV about how this new FeedBurner service was the label’s answer to iTunes disintermediating them.
Furthermore, Geffen is promoting their artists feeds in other FeedBurner feeds. So, they are using the medium to generate traffic while also using it to present commercial opportunities. Its a double feature…
Watch RSS jump out from being used for just static content distribution. You will see a rapid emergence of this medium for promotion, two way interaction (Microsoft plans to use it for synchronization) and commercial transactions. We are just coming out of the first inning. FeedBurner is in a great position at the center of all of this.
(disclaimer: FeedBurner is one of our portfolio companies…)