RSS Marketing Articles

Who is Using RSS and How Many People? What do Google, Microsoft and Yahoo! Have To Do With It ...

by Rok Hrastnik, author of "Unleash the Marketing & Publishing Power of RSS"

Comment: this article was first written in 2005 and is by now heavily outdated. So, instead of using it as a "how to" piece, rather look on it as a piece of internet history. This is how we saw RSS marketing more than 6 years ago!

Are enough people using RSS today for it to be a worthwile marketing activity? And if they are, who are these people anyway?

Who is Using RSS?

• A recent study by Nooked shows that 87% of key influencers are using RSS to keep up with news and other developments on the internet. These include journalists, analysts and bloggers. Without RSS, reaching these people is becoming increasingly harder.
  
  
• A Nielsen/NetRatings study showed that RSS is being used by more active internet users. The same study discovered that RSS users visit their favorite sites more often than non-users, thus showing that by providing your visitors with RSS feeds and explaining to them what RSS is, you will be increasing their loyalty to your websites and your business, and at the same time expanding the number of opportunities you have to make a sale to them or deepen the relationship with them.
  
  
• According to Jupiter Research, RSS users are a highly desirable demographic, with annual incomes over $75,000, and are between the ages of 35 and 44. RSS will make it easier for you to reach these people and market to them.
  
  
• According to Nielsen/NetRatings, 11% of those reading blogs are also using RSS.

By all standards, all of the above are a highly desirable "demographic". But, what's more, RSS is also being increasingly used by "the average online consumer", using web-services such as MyYahoo!, where users don't even know they are subscribing to feeds and using them to get the content they want.

What do Google, Microsoft and Yahoo! Have To Do With It?

Any marketing tool is only as strong as the market leaders behind it, which have the power to bring it to the masses.

RSS has already achieved full support from Microsoft, Google and Yahoo!, which are and will be leading the way to mass RSS adoption, making RSS an absolute must for marketers.

Microsoft Shows Full Support for RSS
Microsoft has recently announced full support for RSS in the next version of their Internet Explorer, Outlook Express, Outlook and their entire new operating system, Windows Vista. This means that after these are launched, RSS usage will grow explosively and end-users will start demanding RSS content from marketers and publishers. If you are not ready by then and if you have not implemented RSS best practices, your competitors will get the upper hand. It's not only about being among the leaders right now, but also about getting all the experience you need to bring you to the top of RSS marketing once most of the world starts using RSS.

Google AdSense Ads in RSS Feeds
If you are generating revenues from the Google AdSense program, you are actually losing income if you don't implement RSS. Namely, Google recently introduced AdSense ads in RSS feeds, making RSS an absolute must for the publishers that want to get the most out of this program without losing revenues. Furthermore, Google is also joining the ranks of those that are integrating RSS in their web services for end-users, for example by providing RSS search engines and web-based RSS aggregators. By not being found on Google's RSS search engine and by not allowing your target audiences to subscribe to your feeds via their personal Google interfaces, you are losing your prospects.

MyYahoo! as the Source of New Prospects
MyYahoo! has been among the first to fully integrate RSS aggregator capabilities in their personalized portal, making it easy for any of their millions of users to subscribe to any RSS feeds, without even having to know what RSS is. By not being available you are missing out on possible new and existing prospects and customers.

How Many People Are Using RSS?

While there is much research being done on actual RSS readership, the actual results are still inconclussive, given to the fact that each research paper is providing different end-results.

Here are some of the recent numbers ...

• 3% of Internet users use RSS (Jupiter Research)
  [these numbers only include the people who know they are using RSS and not those that are using RSS but don't know really know it, such as is the case with many MyYahoo! users, which is also the most popular RSS reader/aggregator]
  
  
• 11% of blog readers use RSS (Nielsen/NetRatings)
  
  
• 2% of all Americans online use RSS (Forrester Research)
  [these numbers only include the people who know they are using RSS and not those that are using RSS but don't know really know it, such as is the case with many MyYahoo! users, which is also the most popular RSS reader/aggregator]
  
  
• 9% of Americans have a good idea of what RSS is (PEW)
  
  
• 12% of all Americans online use a variety of RSS readers (Jupiter Research)
  
  
• 5% of Americans online use RSS (PEW)

While there is no definitive answer to how many people are really using RSS, it is clear that RSS readership is growing and will continue to grow once RSS features become implemented in tools such as the Internet Explorer.

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Just don't forget - it was written and published so long ago, that many things have changed since. While it still has its uses, look at it first as a piece of internet history and not as a reference guide for 2011 and beyond.