Research by Media Buyer Planner and Workplace Print Media shows that merely 2% of US employees subscribe to RSS feeds, and only 9% know what such feeds are. According to Jupiter Research only 8% of US e-mail marketers used RSS as of June 2006. This low actual usage by e-mail marketers belies more widespread interest in the technology. Nearly a third (32%) of US marketers were either "interested" or "very interested" in advertising via RSS.
So what will it take for more Internet users, both at home and at work, to adopt RSS? As with many other PC applications, bundling RSS software with new versions of operating systems and Internet browsers is the most likely path to mass adoption for RSS. With both Microsoft Windows (Vista) and Apple OS 10.5(Leopard) set for release during Q1 2007, there is a fresh chance for computer users to be introduced to RSS. Internet browsers may be updated even sooner and more often to include RSS browsing. What is less realistic is to expect the average PC user to download a separate RSS-reading application. It is one thing to expect browser users to import RSS feeds from their existing list of favorites. It is another to expect them to learn about the technology on their own, and use it within a separate application. This is doubly true for advertising — even opt-in e-mail — as it is with news. |
