FeedHub CEO: "RSS is Middleware for Media" and a Revenue Proposition

Hot off the Web 2.0 conference last week, I had a quick chat with the CEO of Mspoke, Dave Mawhinney. Mspoke are the makers of FeedHub, a tool that launched at DEMO and helps you sort through the feeds that you don't follow every moment but those that you want just the good bits from. Here are my notes from our chat (the last part about revenue is especially interesting):

Dave began the conversation with an update on FeedHub which Dave says is going very well. They are working hard to keep up with demand and to deliver highly relevant information. He thanked the FeedHub users for being patient as they scale up the technology. The more you use FeedHub, the smarter the "adaptive" engine knows about you and they are working to improve the social contract.

Dave called RSS the, "Middleware for Media," which is a great way to describe where RSS is headed. You can read my earlier article about why RSS is currently broken and looking at it as a media tool and not as much a technology tool makes sense. He went on to describe RSS as an exchange of structured information with mashups being the most simple example.

Dave believes that RSS enables better collaboration and I would add that it has created new streams of collaboration.

We discussed revenue models from RSS and tools that enable RSS and Dave offered three methods - two of which are available today:

• Burned into the post - FeedBurner and Text Link Ads "Feedvertising" programs do this today though the take rate is very low
• Sponsored posts - A full post in the RSS feed which is sponsored drives additional revenue to the media entity - I see this method growing over time
• This third method was new to me - and could be a bit controversial but in any case it is a very interesting model. You read a post on CN in your RSS reader (i.e. FeedHub/Snarfer/Google Reader) and inside the story is a link to Read/WriteWeb (RWW). Since FeedHub knows who you are, when you click the link, it sends you to RWW along with a token about who you are. Then RWW can serve the correct ad to you based on who you are versus just an anonymous Internet visitor. Since the targeted ad pays more than a default, the revenue upside would be shared between RWW, CN and FeedHub. Again, this isn't used today but is an interesting model to consider. What this means is that the RSS reader tools will play a larger role in their function as not just to read and link but to read, link and provide info.

Thanks to Dave for spending a few minutes with me.