This installment of the Online Marketing Champions series features a pioneer in RSS technology, Royal P. Farros, co-Founder, CEO, and chairman of MessageCast. Farros was also founder, CEO, and chairman of iPrint Technologies; officer and general manager of Deluxe Corporation; chairman and EVP of T/Maker Company; 2000 Winner, San Jose Business Journal Entrepreneur of the Year and was on the MicroTimes 100 List of Industry Leaders. Farros has also appeared numerous times on CNBC, Silicon Spin, and other financial and high-tech venues. He is a frequent guest lecturer at both Stanford Graduate School of Business and Stanford Law School and holds multiple patents for online desktop publishing/manufacturing process work.

Via RSS, MessageCast is pioneering ways to dramatically improve electronic messaging and broadcast communication while eliminating SPAM. In our interview Farros discusses the explosive growth of RSS and its bright future in the realm of marketing and communications.

eMarketingIQ: How is the RSS marketing revolution going and is there a comparison you can make in regard to its impact long-term?

Royal Farros: It’s become a bigger topic than just how to communicate with customers. RSS is still in its infancy, but I predict it will have the same long-term impact that SMTP did. SMTP was the one protocol that allowed everyone to communicate. It provided the method that allowed everyone to talk with one another. Now with e-mail and all that it entails at present, e-mail itself has run amok, and there’s a better way for consumers and companies to talk to one another via RSS.

I hate giving my e-mail out, so you have legitimate marketing companies with opt-in, but they can’t get their e-mails to the opt-in subscribers. RSS is going to clean all that up.

eMarketingIQ: How is RSS an enabling technology?

RF: It’snot just RSS, but real-time. It’s just a protocol, but it’s what you do with it. RSS is a triggering mechanism. You don’t need listening devices or rules engines to maintain it. RSS is real-time information, something happens, you can inform your subscribers and it takes seconds to do so

Let’s take an example of a company I followed that I knew was going to miss their first guidance numbers. I was watching the stock and thinking the stock should be moving, but it didn’t move at all. Finally, the stock drops 35% in six minutes. That was way after I got the information that the company was going to miss its first guidance numbers. RSS changes the game because the time-consuming deployments won’t exist. This will change the way people do business.

eMarketingIQ: Will it ever replace e-mail?

RF: No. There’s always going to be a need for good old-fashioned e-mail, just like there’s still a place for snail mail. But for marketing via e-mail, yes it’s going to change that. With RSS, it’s anonymous and the customer fully controls the process. Today , as a customer, you are not in control. You can be added to mailing lists with indirect opt-in even with list rentals, etc. RSS is going to have a giant impact on that.

It’s the same kind of impact that i-Tunes and Napster have had in changing the way people distribute music in the world.

eMarketingIQ: What do you think is important for marketers to understand about consumers?

RF: That people like to be anonymous and like being in control. Look at Pointcast. It came out of nowhere and went to the moon. Pointcast took down internal networks, etc., but the idea was brilliant. RSS is Pointcast 2.0.

eMarketingIQ: Can you describe the term Alert Engine Marketing (AEM) in regard to RSS?

RF: RSS is the universal data trigger in AEM.

Here's the opportunity: There are a zillion blogs being created, capturing very specific audiences. Advertisers would indeed covet sharing their message with such targeted audiences.

The problem: Without RSS, you have to custom develop an alerting mechanism for each blog. Clearly impossible to scale.

The solution: An alerting mechanism that triggers off RSS updates.

The brilliance: Info in the RSS file also helps make the ad relevant and therefore useful.

eMarketingIQ: You were a panelist on the RSS, Real-Time Networks, and The Best Way To Fix Horribly Broken E-mail And Get Killer Results at the DMA convention in New Orleans recently. Do you have any observations about the general perception of RSS?

RF: It was the most detailed Q&A I’ve ever done. People were at the panel, but they were really looking for a workshop on RSS. They wanted help to put together the RSS system, and they wanted to actually see if they could build one right there. At the conference as a whole, no one was talking about RSS and only half my audience had heard of it. But that awareness is changing on a minute by minute basis. More and more people are turning to RSS.

As a marketer, if you know what RSS is, you’re ten steps ahead. Even just as an observer, I believe those “asset” e-mail marketing lists are going to be rendered impotent in the next few years. Now most marketers would say, “You’re nuts.” But don’t shoot the messenger, because with the government, CAN-SPAM, SENDER ID movement, things are changing. Even in the election year -- one thing all the Democrats and Republicans agreed on is they ALL HATE SPAM. It’s universal.

eMarketingIQ: Were there specific things addressed at the panel that surprised you?

RF: I didn’t get the backlash that I was worried about. The first question I posed was, “E-mail is broken. Does anyone disagree?” And no one raised their hand. My guess is that at the next show a year from now, RSS will be among one of the most talked about topics.

eMarketingIQ: Do you think regulating e-mail will work?

RF: Ultimately, no. With spam, people within the industry aren’t self-policing. It just keeps getting worse. All of the remedies address the system, not the disease. Even with authentication.

Let’s take an e-mail list of 1 million people you sell to. Three to five years from now, that list is going to be down to 100,000 because the government is going to clean up the “Wild Wild West.” The government is going to shut down your list. On the positive side, if you’ve got a real time network that can give you ten times the response, you’re going to be better off. And even if there’s no spam, there’s waste in click-through. Real-time networks authenticate.

I think marketers need to understand real-time and RSS because spam is on its way out. California did its spam law and it required a mandatory opt-in. Affirmative consent -- the state would have made everyone re-opt in. Universally that would have been a disaster. People are sick of spam and would not have given their re-opt in permission. The government superseded the proposed California law and gave California a break. The passed CAN-SPAM law really just explained how to send out legal spam. The last 12 months spam has doubled.

eMarketingIQ: What are your predictions for the future efforts of curbing spam?

RF: I predict that over the next few years, you will see more and more people giving up their old e-mail addresses, just to break free. Sure, the solution to spam is authentication but you’re looking at 5 to 10 years. Everyone has to agree on a standard. I’m all for that, but there needs to be some reprieve now.

What RSS and real-time networks can do for anyone who wants to deliver specific information to opt-in subscribers is to let them do it now.

eMarketingIQ: Why should marketers care about RSS now?

RF: Because if they want to be pro-active and even increase their response rate by 10 times, they will look at RSS as an alternative to what is happening right now with e-mail delivery. RSS has no negative incentive, all positive because it retains the consumer privacy. They shut if off if they don’t want it. Control is going to the customer.

Beyond that with the Wall Street Journal calling RSS revolutionary, that in itself shows the movement toward something different than mass e-mailing is gathering momentum. RSS is showing explosive growth, and its application continues to expand. We have a blogging product that went from nothing to 10,000 and it’s continuing to double each month.