The experience of subscription and RSS

So RSS is emerging more and more in the enterprise.  Many of us will be thinking about how RSS will impact our communities of information workers.  I posted recently on the issues surrounding information overload.  Tonight I’ll focus my attention to the subscription experience itself.

I don’t use Microsoft Outlook for my work email client, we are a Lotus Notes shop and my predominant work background has been, until recently, focused on Lotus Notes (including as a beta user for Notes 8).  I do however use Outlook at home and think they have really hit on the right formula for subscription. 

Here’s why I like the Microsoft method:

– the interfaces are clean and intuitive

– you subscribe to feeds during your normal browsing experience (with IE7)

– your feeds are then automatically synchronised using the Windows Common Feed List into Outlook 2007

– once in Outlook the posts are to all intent and purpose an email so it is simple for the user to forward articles to colleagues.

– they have obviously thought about how people work and how to make the experience better for the information worker.

The link between RSS and email is one of the features I would look for in any enterprise RSS reader (be that standalone or bundled/plugged into an email product).