Scoble’s Link Blog

I posted some comments a few days ago on the MSNsearch blog regarding the “MSN Found” site.   

Basically, I think the campaign is garbage.  And I think it could have been great.  If you want to know what I think they should have done (and still should do) go read my comments over there.

Scoble said something on there that got me thinking.  He said that kids 10-18 are using RSS more and more to keep tabs on their friends (using sites like LiveJournal, Xanga, MSNSpaces, etc).

He’s right.  But here’s the thing:  They don’t know they’re using RSS.  They’re using “Friends lists” (some of which I think don’t even actually use RSS, but the idea is the same).  I used one of those for years on my Livejournal account.  The friends page is basically an aggregator for your friends’ LJ posts.  And they’ve been doing it since 1999/2000. 

I’m just waiting for someone to start seeing the marketing opportunity there.  Heck, I’m afraid to even mention it – as I fear this idea could be put to some truly evil uses.  But here’s what I see… Get these kids to add your marketing livejournal to their friends list.  Don’t make it fake like MSN Found is right now.  Make a “blog” where every day or so some cool links are posted courtesy of MSN Search.    Keep it clean, simple, text-only. 

I think the key to a search engine marketing campaign like this is to make it useful.  Those fake blogs and such that they have on MSN Found aren’t useful.  They’re a waste of time.  I use a Search engine so that I can find what I want as quickly as possible with the shortest path possible between where I already am and what I’m looking for.  I suggested that MSN Found could show me cool things that actual people found using MSN Search that day.  And perhaps, like Newsbot, the content could adapt to show things like those that I’m interested in (based on what links I click on). 

How would you do a “viral marketing” campaign using RSS?