Los Angeles Times To Intro Ad-Cluttered RSS Feeds
This morning L.A. Observed reported that the Los Angeles Times will launch a new online service, “Los Angeles Times Newspoint,” in August. The company that will provide the service makes it sound like a private label RSS reader, but one focused on “increasing (publisher) revenue through NewsPoint’s innovations in RSS-related targeted text, display, and classified advertising.”
This does not sound promising.
One columnist who has seen a beta says:
… I’ve been looking at a demo of the LATimes.com version. In it, banner ads (approximately 185 x 62) appear both within the lists of content feeds, and between items on the feeds themselves. The ads … are served by the publishers’ own ad serving technology and can be targeted in the same ways as ads on their Web sites.
I can save the LAT some market research dollars by telling them my reaction without seeing this product: I don’t want ads cluttering up my RSS feeds. I use RSS precisely because it lets me scan hundreds (don’t ask) of headlines in a few minutes. If I’m spending $20 / month for the paper, I especially don’t want to see ads in my newsreader. If a feed starts interrupting this process, it’ll be gone. I can get the content somewhere else.
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Thanks, L.A. Observed, for the link … more of our LAT coverage here.
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July 19th, 2005 at 2:37 pm
these branded rss readers will probably see as much uptake as branded web browsers. i know what i’m looking for in an rss reader is “more premium desktop [ad] inventory for publishers.”
but maybe this means the los angeles times is finally going to start publishing rss feeds.
(and ads in rss feeds is a foregone conclusion. it is happening already. the washington post is one example of a news site that produces rss feeds with ads.)
July 20th, 2005 at 8:53 am
position yourself in the update to yesterday’s post, and the original LABJ story here. * More NewsPoint reaction: Blogger Independent Sources says please no ad clutter …Columnist Paula Parker has seen the beta version and says to expect headlines, summaries—and plenty of ads.