As a long-time American Express customer, I was recently given the opportunity to participate in its two-month RSS beta test. I've always been surprised that AmEx has never allowed me choose what emails I want to receive--beyond broadly declining all marketing email. So I was pleased to see that the company is attempting to offer this kind of selection via RSS. Among the feeds it is offering: travel deals, hot auctions, gold card events (concerts, etc.), rewards points and shopping.

While I think it's great that AmEx is doing this, it does highlight a long-time nagging question: Why doesn't the company do this with email, where it would benefit a much larger number of customers? Also, the RSS feeds appear to be generic, so I can't use that channel to get targeted or personal information (e.g., rewards point balances).

Despite all this, it's a strong endorsement of RSS, and one more sign that the technology is here to stay.