beta

Yes, we are alive and well – apologies for lack of blogging – I promise to write more…. and more. We’re about to release some new products into the wild, but firstly I want to give a backdrop to what we’re up to.

Back in 2004 when the web was full of RSS virgins – over pints of Guinness in Sligo we threw around scenarios on what RSS would be used for. Distributing press releases, subscribing to blogs, tracking product announcements, etc were all scribbled down on the back of the beer mats. Three years later RSS is everywhere – publishers are using RSS to distribute media, marketers are using RSS to push out press releases and product offers, start pages are the new web2.0 rage – and rss is the “plumbing” of the whole web2.0 movement.

Back in nooked labs we were having loads of fun educating, evangelizing and promoting RSS as a great marketing tool. We were not alone. Loads of marketers answered the “call to action”. With our feedwizard product, we were able to see first hand what people were doing around RSS marketing. But a lot of folks just don’t get the religion. RSS is still too geeky for some – we need better ways for the consumer to get information.

One interesting project one of our developers, Padraig, did last year to address the “geekiness” issue [obviously using his 20% time] is almost ready to come out of the lab. Padraig “created” feeds from his favourite online retailers – and we built up a nice collection of feeds. As Dave Winer has said “Feeds containing commercial information people want, are wired”. He added in other clever additions to tweak the output options – some personalized filters [Thanks Toni for the tip] and a little widget [dogfooding widget marketing].

The online shoppers in nooked labs love our service – the bigger credit card bills is proof of that love. This project – nicknamed “feedshop” – for really simple shopping – has came in handy when we talk to online retailers – it certainly helps at demo time. The analogy we use for retailers is “feedcommerce = an e-commerce system driven by RSS”.

Fred Wilson – the renowned VC blogger – also thinks feedcommerce is big biz. feedcommerce is the next generation e-commerce system and RSS is the currency! feedcommerce presents opportunities for a lot of folks. For consumers it means subscribing to personalized RSS feeds of products that are of interest to them and which they may purchase from time to time. For online retailers, it means providing their users with the means to create these personalized product and service feeds. It also means utilizing all the Web platforms that are available to reach consumers – such as blogs, social networks, start pages, Google, and so on.

Stay tuned as nooked introduces “feedshop” into the world – we may come up with a different name – but now back to work for a bit as we build the first feedcommerce platform in the world.