Microsoft's Internet Explorer 7 web browser was officially launched this week prompting web developers and eMarketers everywhere to download and install it for compatibility testing.

I've been using IE7 Beta for several weeks and noticed the new RSS auto-detect button would only occasionally find a feed on a web page. "Hmmmmm", I thought  "Maybe this is just a Beta thing. I'll wait until the final release to worry about it".


Now, RSS adoption by everyday consumers is probably barely over 1%. However, I've been a firm believer that RSS auto-discovery in browsers will be the key to promoting more adoption (besides calling it anything other than "RSS", like just plain old "News Feed").

All of our web hosting solutions include an RSS feed that aggregates activity across all web applications so that customers and partners can subscribe to a single feed to track discussion forum activity, blog entries, KB article updates, and general news.

So, when I installed the final release and noticed our feeds were still not being auto-discovered, I turned to RSS expert Charlie Wood who pointed me in the right direction to quickly resolve the issue (thanks Charlie!).

The impact of RSS on B2B marketing may take awhile, but features like auto-discover in IE7 will definitely help remove the major barriers to adoption.