Web 2.0 ROI - Monetizing RSS Feeds

Forrester Research studied how businesses are using Web 2.0 technologies. Not surprisingly, they found that IT decision-makers were unable to quantify the ROI.

Here is a direct quote: "rather than point to hard facts, such as support center calls offset by a self-service rich Internet application or Web site traffic from an RSS feed, respondents more often pointed to softer benefits, such as business efficiency and competitive advantage as the true value of Web 2.0 in their companies."

As a result of this absence of meaningful metrics, Forrester Research concludes Web 2.0 adoption in the business world will be slow.

Here is a RSS feed application that offers obvious and easy to track metrics....

The problem with the standard RSS feed is that you have to click on the link in your aggregator to be taken to the web site. But what if instead of a headline and a link, you saw an actual window (a widget or a cog) that showed the actual content from the site?

How would you get such a window? The content provider would have the cog (the window or widget) available on its site. And if you are interested in the content, you can click a simple button and have that cog appear on your own web site. Now your site has the window and it is getting the exact same content that appears in the window of the content provider's site.

If this makes sense so far,then you are ready for the payoff...

Whatever is in that cog is exactly what is going to be seen every time that cog is embedded in a new web site. So, if a banner ad is included then that banner ad is going to be seen in every cog.

If 100 websites take a content provider's cog and put it on their own page, then the content provider gets the credit not just for the impressions on its own website, but also the impressions on 100 other websites on which the cog appears.

A corporation can make its RSS content available through these cogs and create its own advertising revenue streams. Or a trade magazine that already has the sponsorship infrastructure can take the corporation's RSS feed, display it in a cog on its website and invite others interested in the information to replicate the cog.

How hard would it be to measure the ROI of that model?