Yesterday was a very big day for blogging and podcasting -- particularly for those of us using these new media vehicles in PR and overall corporate communications. Do you know why?
The reason is this: IE 7.
IE 7 is the new version of Microsoft's Internet Explorer Web browser, and it's big news for us because it includes RSS feeds. When browsing a page that has an RSS feed in IE 7 you can see via a lit, orange RSS chicklet that there is a feed, subscribe to the feed, and look at the feed updates right in your "favorites" window.
This will make RSS feeds -- which carry new blog and podcast episodes automatically to subscribers -- easily available to a big, big audience. In fact, people won't be able to avoid it, as IE 7 is going to be pushed to all IE users via Microsoft's automatic update feature in the months to come.
The fact that this simple RSS feature will be included in the browser that will be on the vast majority of all desktops suggests to me a sharp surge in individuals using RSS feeds -- and the content that is provided through them, blogs and podcasts.
For communicators, this suggests strongly that if you're not involved in blogging and podcasting yet -- you should be. It's going to get a whole lot more important very quickly.
IE 7 Screenshots (click to view larger version):
View of IE 7 showing RSS feed available at top of browser
View of RSS feeds in favorites folder
View of the RSS feed itself
