The Fourth Generation of Internet Marketing (3) IM Marketing
I see the light of hope: this could be used to have people subscribe to newsletter.
[+] Another way to replace email marketing
When email becomes a very unreliable communication tool, is there any effective way to distribute information besides RSS? Look into your daily life, are there any other common communication tools?
You may immediately think of Instant Messenger (IM). Yes, in this prospering Internet age, everyone has at least one IM open on his desktop. In some sense, the use of IM even has replaced email.
Just think, if you can inform your clients via MSN Messenger or Yahoo! Messenger as soon as your website has new products or new services to be released. It could be much more efficient than email or RSS.
For emails and RSS, they have to wait for people to receive them. However, if you send information through IM, a message box will pop up directly on the user's desktop. Normally, people will take a glance at the IM message that pops up while leaving email unread for a while.
In August 2006, when I was thinking hard about the alternative solution to the newsletter marketing, MSN Messenger came up to his mind very soon. Almost every white collar was using it, and the user group was pretty much the same with that of Digital Wall. I then started to look for a feasible plan.
[+] The possibility to use MSN Bot
The most awkward way is to register an MSN Messenger account and ask the newsletter subscriber to add this account into his MSN Messenger contact list. Each time the website is updated, messages with the URL of new articles will be sent to those readers.
But that will bring about several problems: 1) Obviously, the messenger contact list is going to be extremely long. I have over 140,000 readers. But what is the maximum number of contacts Microsoft allows? It is not possible there is no such a limit, isn't it? 2) It's never going to happen to send IM messages to readers manually! How much time will that costs! 3) If I send out thousands of notification messages to subscribers within a certain period of time, how could it be possible that Microsoft's servers would not block me as a spam message publisher?
Many people may know that such kind of IM has robots, so does MSN Messenger, which is called 'MSN Bot'. MSN Bot is actually a program-controlled account. You may chat with it after you add such account into your own MSN Messenger contact list.
Some MSN Bots have rich functions. For example, if you ask it an English word, it will give the translation in other language. And some other MSN Bots can do map searching, etc.
Microsoft also encourages the development of Bot. If you are interested, you can take a look at this interesting MSN Bot developing contest:
https://www.robotinvaders.com/main/Default.aspx
I see the light of hope: this could be used to have people subscribe to newsletter.
[+] Limitations by using MSN Bot
Website operators can release MSN Messenger accounts which are actually MSN Bot programs. Subscribers then add that kind of account to their MSN Messengers. Message publishing is accomplished by sending messages to everyone's IM by the program.
However, that solution is not perfect. Microsoft still blocks large amount of message publishing. Sending messages separately in separate hours may be a way to get around. However, problems still exist when the number of readers is huge, because it might be a week later when the last reader receives the message.
It then comes to my mind that, would logon notification work instead of IM message publishing? As we all know that MSN Messenger will give out notification when contacts log on. Therefore, as long as operators set up logon and logoff time schedules for the MSN Bot, subscribers will be notified automatically.
The effect is much worse than sending messages directly. Since Microsoft still has maximum limit on the number of contacts, this method is not suitable for the case of large number of subscribers. If those limitations could not be solved, this method will be restricted.
It is still possible to get around the limitations posted on the amount of MSN message publishing and the number of contacts. In fact, Microsoft has special authorized enterprises across the globe. As long as operators pay them for sending large number of messages, those limitations could be overcome. However, small websites need cheaper solutions.
[+] The twilight for IM marketing
Either developing MSN Bot or paying for sending messages is beyond the capability of ordinary website operators. At least the cost is much higher than the relatively low-cost email marketing. However, the situation is changed with the advent of Microsoft Windows Live Alerts.
This service is for the content subscription service through Windows Live Messenger (the former MSN Messenger). For example, the user will be informed by the Messenger when MSNBC news is updated.
Windows Live Alerts：http://alerts.live.com
Subscribers can set up time slots to keep from beiing disturbed by messages during work. They can also set messages to be forwarded automatically to their email boxes when they're offline. Finally, the role of IM has been shifted from a communication tool to a content publishing tool.
If you are a content provider, you can apply to become a Microsoft content publisher in order to be assigned a unique subscription URL. By simply clicking the URL, users will get into the subscription process and receive messages from you.
The instructions for how to become a content publisher can be found at: http://signup.alerts.live.com
This service is still on test. Therefore, all applications are sent to the U.S. headquarters. Processing one application needs a little time. It's not known yet whether there is any limit for the number of subscribers allowed for individual
content providers.
[+] The Fourth Generation of Internet marketing: Rights in the users' hands
We can imagine that content subscription through IM will increase rapidly. We are more excited to see that Internet companies have opened such platform for website or Blog operators. IM will become the channel for the new generation of content aggregation and publishing.
If you run an eCommerce site, as long as people are willing to subscribe to your Windows Live Alerts, why not sending out discount information through this channel? Of course, it will become more competitive because every website runner can send messages to Internet users through it.
Internet marketing has evolved to its fourth generation with RSS and IM subscription as the major tools. We should keep in mind that from the first to the fourth generation, the power of choice has been gradually transferred to
Internet users' hands, and that is an everlasting marketing law in the Internet age.
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The Fourth Generation of Internet Marketing (3) IM Marketing - 2007/01/07
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