The advent of a certified class of commercial email highlights the dwindling effectiveness of the send-and-receive mode of Internet communication.

Electronic marketers are starting to wake up to the idea that there’s a future beyond email blasts. Chris Redlitz lays this out as an evolutionary process, whereby RSS feeds are ideally situated — both from the commercial and consumer adoption ends — to pick up where email has faltered.

Of course, this is not a new notion. Over a year ago, the since-departed Greedy Girl blog detailed a case study on how RSS delivery outperformed email for viral marketing campaign retention and responses. And the big boys have caught on, too: Ad placement in media feeds are becoming par for the course.

All of which means, of course, that feeds will soon become just as cluttered as the average spammed-up inbox. But that’s progress.

(Via Alan Graham’s post on The Story of Feedster — where, of course, Redlitz is President)