I hadn’t been using Blogs and RSS that long when I began asking the question that seemed obvious to me: how can I send blog posts via email?

Not everybody uses RSS —heck, most people don’t even know what RSS means, much less how to subscribe to feeds and read them. Maybe you only care about online people, but the vast majority of the world does not live and breathe this stuff the way we do. In fact, the average consumer is just now mastering email! Check this out:

According to an October 2005 White Paper published by Yahoo, “Awareness of RSS is quite low among Internet users. 12% of users are aware of RSS, and 4% have knowingly used RSS.”

So there you have it.

Everywhere I looked, Internet marketers were buzzing about RSS and blogs, but nobody seemed to notice or even care that it was twice as much work as before—first post it to the blog, then send it via email for all the people who didn’t do RSS. No, I didn’t want them to be notified to come to the site and read the post, I wanted to SEND the post to them via email. How could I do that?

So I searched and searched for an “RSS to Email” solution and found nothing. I found something called Rmail, which was close but no cigar. No, I wanted something that literally took whatever you posted to your blog, popped it into an email note and sent it.

I thought about having an application developed but I really needed this NOW, and frankly would just rather pay for a product that’s already developed. Nobody else seemed to be complaining about this. What was I missing?

I thought about Blog to Email for days. Wrote down my requirements. Put it down as a potential product that I would develop if I absolutely had to.

Two days ago I was on the phone with a well known Internet marketer, and I mentioned that I needed this application and why hadn’t anyone developed something like this.

I hadn’t even finished my sentence when he started laughing and said, “You’re not going to believe this—I just got a note …” and went on to tell me about this email announcement he had just received with the subject “Convert RSS to Email”.

Now, some may say this is a coincidence, but I believe it’s the Universe giving me exactly what I asked for. I’m not a very “Zen” person, but lately I’ve learned the power of concentration, focus, and… the Universe.

I learned a long time ago to write down what I want to accomplish, described in detail, but over time I guess I forgot this valuable tool for getting things done.

Ideas are very powerful, and the subconscious mind takes what you give it and turns it into reality. Don’t ask me to explain this to you, as I am still re- learning how this works. But it does!

Now that I’ve learned (again) to focus on one (or two) things at a time, great things are happening. And if it’s not immediately obvious to you why I’m so excited about RSS2Email stay tuned!

And if you’re interested in finding out more about what the Universe sent per my request —RSS to Email—go here: Feed Broadcaster

If you don’t see it, search for “Convert RSS to Email Newsletters Automatically”

Update: January 13. 2006

Well my love affair with Aweber’s Feed Broadcaster is over. It’s a great idea but the output options are limited. When the blog post is placed into an email, all of the text runs together into one long paragraph. Not very inviting to the eye, especially with some of the longer reviews I’ve been writing. I wrote to Aweber about it last night and here’s their response:

RSS feeds don’t include the formatting you find on your blog page, so it would not be possible for us to replicate that formatting using the RSS Feed Broadcaster technology. We provide the templates to allow you to adjust certain aspects of the formatting, but it would not be possible to adjust the formatting for the paragraph that is entered.If there’s anything else we can help you with, please just let us know.

Well, gee, if I’m going to manually adjust the output each time I may as well manually copy the blog post to my email program and send it out!

Another case of great idea, poor execution. I’ll tinker with it some more to see if there’s an automated solution, otherwise it’s back to the drawing board!

Update: January 19. 2006

I found a couple solutions that take the blog post and put it into an email while maintaining the formatting, so why can’t Aweber do it? One of them is open source so I could actually run it on my server if I wanted to: RSSFwd

Categories: Entrepreneurship, RSS Tools, Blogging Tools, Autoresponders
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My first recommendation is Alex King’s Word Press Theme Browser

When I decided to launch Review HQ as a Word Press blog, this is the first place I went to look for a theme.

I wanted a design with great flexibility and navigation, so I went to my favorite place for WP skins, http://www.alexking.org. With 140 templates to choose from, I decided to narrow it down to several, choose one, then modify it as best I can and use it for awhile. I found quite a few I liked, and decided to use them all for awhile.

If I keep it up and actually make it an ongoing thing then I’ll pay someone to incorporate all of the best features of my favorites into one custom template.

If you need a Word Press template, you’re bound to find something you like at http://www.alexking.org!

p.s. Found a few more themes I like here: http://www.bloggingpro.com/archives/category/wordpress-themes/

Love, love, LOVE the VSlider theme—it has a random header image and the photos are awesome. I wrote Rui Pereira, the young man who developed it, and am trying to get him to let me use the photos (they don’t come with the theme, you need to add your own).

Categories: Blogging Tools
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