Debate Over RSS Advertising Rages

Many websites now publish their content using RSS or Really Simple Syndication which allows readers to "subscribe" to newsfeeds from web sites. The feeds are offered with either the headline, the headline and the first few words of the article or the headline with the full story.

Basically, RSS makes it very easy to get content from many different sources all in one place. If something in the RSS feed is of interest, a quick click takes one to the actual website to which the feed points.

Like any new communication channel, advertising is slowly seeping its way into RSS feeds and while some marketers are jumping aboard, many users are not happy about it.

Jason Kottke sent a query out to several RSS reader developers asking for their stance on RSS advertising and whether or not they have plans to integrate ad blocking into their software. The story is here along with reader comment.