Even as the big Internet players are falling over each other in a bid to have a slice of the RSS (really simple syndication) pie, the reality of user survey statistics shows that market is not that yummy yet. Two recent surveys have demonstrated that the awareness of RSS is low even in a country like the United States (US). But yes, the scope is tremendous.
It must have been the promise held by the RSS segment that prompted Yahoo Inc to commission a study of this sector by Ipsos Insight. The findings have been released in the form of a White Paper titled "RSS Crossing into the Mainstream".
Among the findings revealed is the candid admission that awareness of RSS is quite low among Internet users. Only 12 per cent of users are aware of RSS, and barely 4 per cent have knowingly used RSS. About 27 per cent of Internet users consume RSS syndicated content on personalised start pages (e.g., My Yahoo!, My MSN) without knowing that RSS is the enabling technology.
While 28 per cent of Internet users are aware of podcasting, the distribution of original audio content such as audio blogs and radio shows that Internet users can subscribe to and download to a personal audio player on a regular basis. However, only 2 per cent currently subscribe to podcasts.
The high awareness of podcasting reflects the volume of recent media coverage and buzz, but very few Internet users have translated this buzz into personal consumption. Similar to RSS, wider adoption of podcasting might require more consumer-oriented products to bridge the gap between the technology and the benefits of podcasting, the Ipsos paper felt.
Even tech-savvy RSS aware users prefer to access RSS feeds via user-friendly, browser-based experiences (e.g., My Yahoo!, Firefox, My MSN). My Yahoo! has the highest awareness (52 per cent) and use (39 per cent) of any RSS-enabled product. The live bookmarks of Firefox comes next with 47 per cent and 30 per cent respectively.
On average, RSS aware users subscribe to 6.6 feeds. While users of more advanced RSS services such as Newsgator and FeedDemon might be more likely to subscribe to a significant number of feeds, these users make up a smaller percentage of the population. RSS aware users also claim to spend an average of 4.1 hours per week reading the feeds that they receive. This finding calls into question the notion that most RSS users leverage the technology to monitor a vast number of media sources.
World news and national (i.e. US, in this ccase) news are currently the RSS content of choice, at 52 per cent. More specialised content such as blogs (23 per cent) and podcasting (11 per cent) are gaining quickly, but are still less prevalent. Mainstream media rather than niche content accounts for the majority of RSS use.
When asked to describe what they thought about RSS in their own words, 24 per cent of RSS aware users mentioned "ease" or "convenience" as the leading benefit. In addition, 18 per cent claimed that they value the ability to choose what they want to read. Surprisingly, only 7 per cent mentioned the continuous updating of RSS feeds. These findings suggest that the primary benefit of RSS is efficient access to media sources.
The XML button appears on many popular websites, providing the ability to add that website as an RSS feed. However, only 17 per cent of Internet users claim to have seen it, and only 4 per cent have ever clicked on one. Even among RSS aware users, only 38 per cent have actually clicked the button, suggesting that they find other means to acquire their RSS feeds.
"After clicking the XML button, almost half of the respondents either left the site or didn't remember exactly what they did next. The tech-centric XML button confuses many Internet users, and may not be the ideal way to distribute RSS feeds. RSS aware users employ various methods to add RSS feeds. Some manually add feeds while others choose from lists of feeds available in the RSS reader. The average user employs 1.6 methods for adding RSS feeds.
The Ipsos paper concluded that publishers striving to syndicate their content via RSS should pay attention to how their feeds are listed within popular RSS readers. They should also provide easy and prominent means for users to add RSS feeds on every article page, it said.
Ironically, the indication of prospects were not mentioned in the Ipsos white paper, but were the findings of a Nielsen//NetRatings survey almost a month back. It found that RSS users are significantly more engaged in online news than non-users, visiting an average of 10.6 news sites compared with 3.4 news sites for non-users.
The reasons said to be behind the difference were not too different from the Ipsos survey. "Convenience is the primary reason respondents gave for using RSS feeds," said Jon Gibs, senior research manager, Nielsen//NetRatings. "Once the technology has been adopted, users can easily add new content. This allows news-hungry Web visitors to sample a wide variety of news sources," he said.
Not only do RSS users visit more news websites than non-users, they also visit those sites more frequently. RSS users visited the top 20 news websites nearly three times as often as non-users and all other news websites four times as often. This, the Nielsen//NetRatings survey said, means that sites outside of the top 20 properties may be among the greatest beneficiaries of RSS.
It is not that the figures were exactly identical, but the trends established were uncannily similar. For instance, Nielsen//NetRatings found that 83 per cent of survey respondents who were identified by clickstream data as RSS users were unaware that they were using RSS technology. This can be explained by sites such as MyYahoo!, where users can customise content without knowing anything about the RSS feeds that make that customising possible.
Among RSS users who understood the technology, 78 per cent were male (Ipsos said this was 71 per cent), and 48 per cent were longtime Internet users who have been going online since at least 1994. Among unaware RSS users, 54 per cent were male (Ipsos said this was 45 per cent) and 36 per cent longtime users. These figures were lowest among respondents who did not use RSS feeds, with just 46 per cent male and 34 per cent longtime users.
"Men tend to be early and aggressive technology adopters, but it may come as a surprise that the youngest Net users were not the most RSS savvy," said Gibs. "RSS users are particularly focused on breaking news, and trend toward an older demographic," he maintained. Wide discrepancy here. Nielsen//NetRatings found 17 per cent RSS-aware users in the 18-34 age group, while Ipsos found 50 per cent. Nevertheless, they are definitely not 99 per cent.
