Google is reportedly in the process of acquiring FeedBurner, a provider of RSS advertising and publishing services used by more than 4 lakh publishers.
So How Big is RSS Usage?
According to Pew Internet & American Life Project 5% (6 million) Americans online consume news and information through RSS or XML aggregators
Forrerster Research study claims that only 2 percent of all online households in America are using RSS. This data, although based on a survey of 68,000 households, is highly contradictory to other available research of RSS usage, especially the 12% figure from Jupiter Research and the PEW research, which shows that 9% of Americans online have a good idea of what RSS is. In Forrester’s February 2005 Marketer Online Survey, 57% of marketers said that they were interested in using Really Simple Syndication (RSS) as a marketing tool
A study by Yahoo late last year revealed that 27% of Internet users consume RSS syndicated content on personalized start pages without knowing that RSS is the enabling technology.
According to Jupiter Research consumers are adopting Really Simple Syndication (RSS) at an astounding rate. Their recent report states that some 30 percent of businesses surveyed added content syndication in feeds due to customer demand. 25 percent publish feeds to increase their subscriber base and 10 percent cited "competitive pressure."
According To Adage RSS is currently used or is planned to be used within the next 12 months by 63% of consumer product marketers, 65% media and communications marketers, 37% retail marketers, 37% financial services marketers and 38% equipment and tech marketers. These are especially industries where RSS is needed by consumers to keep up with their latest relevant content
Yes, RSS penetration certainly is a problem right now, but RSS usage is growing. Forrester claims that 6% of the Internet population was using RSS in 2005. If we go back to their report from 2004, this is a 300% increase over 2004 usage (2%). This 6% of Internet users represents many of the most active people on the Internet, visiting the most sites and sifting through the most content
Many predict 2007 will be the year of major RSS subscriber growth. FeedBurner is growing faster than MySpace and Digg, according to Nielsen/NetRatings mainly because of live feed bookmarks in browsers and
rising popularity of personal homepages, like Google IG, My Yahoo. From an advertising perspective, though the RSS population is still small it is one one segment you cant afford to ignore
Google will get more inventory to insert ads(currently leass than 1% feed publishers push ads
through Feedburner). With the power of Google comeing in publishers who are useing FeedBurner can
make money off their feeds.
Google’s recent acquisitions (YouTube and DoubleClick) have also reflected its interest in broadening its advertising platforms and reach, with Feedburner, Google is set to rule RSS advertising too.
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