So reports eMarketer (available free to non-subs before 8/19). Forrester's estimate is 2% while Pew's is 5%. This almost certainly is an undercount, however. As eMarketer goes on to say:
There are also quite a few RSS users who are not aware they are RSS users, such as those who receive RSS feeds through MyYahoo! by default. Forrester excluded these people from its results, but they comprise a decent chunk of RSS users. In fact, according to a survey released by FeedBurner, MyYahoo! accounts for 59.02% of the feeds received through FeedBurner RSS readers. However, that percentage drops down to 6.68% when default feeds are removed. This indicates that many people may be using RSS already without realizing it, and should allow an easy transition for RSS into a more mainstream technology.
Still, RSS as a protocol has a protocol has a ways to go in terms of adoption. Reminds me of .mp3's penetration back in '98 (though I have no numbers to back that up).
So what happens if/when RSS adoption is > 50%? Who wins, who is at risk? Ad sales people will no doubt soon be adding RSS ads to their repertoire. Media outfits with large display ad revenue streams will have to figure out how much info to syndicate. What other changes are coming down the pike?
Or is the assumption that RSS adoption will continue to soar a misplaced one?
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