I saw a story on DMNews that J.C. Penney is now on trying to get on people’s desktops. Basically they want an avenue to advertise to customers. It’s not too surprising to see J.C. Penny playing in this space. They were recently listed as #12 in Internet Retailer’s top 500 list, so I expect to see them making waves and trying new things.
However, this move has me asking the question, isn’t this the point of the internet itself? I don’t think the problem is that people don’t know how to subscribe to your email list or check out your webpage. It’s that you aren’t actually providing compelling content that keeps me coming back. I’m not sure asking me to download an app to run on my computer is going to change that, even if you include a calendar(!!). Delivering this type of info is exactly what RSS feeds are for. Attempting to circumvent that via your own app just serves to clutter people’s lives more.

I guess this is just an attempt to get out in front of all the people who are confused by or scared of terms like RSS. And this tactic may work for the first few companies who try this, but it certainly won’t scale. You can’t have a JCPenny, Barnes & Noble, Gap, and HomeDepot tool running all at the same time. Beside that, people grow weary of self serving apps like this - why do I need to give you space on my machine to directly advertise to me unless you are providing some immense value that I can’t get elsewhere? I know I don’t need JCPenny on my desktop, maybe I’m just not their target demographic. Alright, I know I’m not.

Update (6/26/07): While surfing around I happened across some one else pushing these BDAs (Branded Desktop Apps) as a solution. Since he’s the VP of the website, I guess I can see why he thinks it’s the solution to the problem. I still think it’s just an awkward paradigm.