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RSS Needs To Become Seamless

By Steve Rubel
Expert Author
Article Date: 2005-10-08

Yahoo! has published a white paper on RSS (PDF) that has several key findings ...

• Awareness of RSS is quite low among Internet users. 12% of users are aware of RSS, and 4% have knowingly used RSS.

• 27% of Internet users consume RSS syndicated content on personalized start mpages (e.g., My Yahoo!, My MSN) without knowing that RSS is the enabling technology.

• 28% of Internet users are aware of podcasting, but only 2% currently subscribe to podcasts.

• Even tech-savvy "Aware RSS 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 and use of any RSS-enabled product.

>>> RSS - Crossing Into the Mainstream

The middle two bullets say it all. RSS (with or without MP3 enclosures) has to become seamless before it becomes useful to the masses. Even Google hasn't mastered that yet. I am using Google's personal page to access my favorite feeds and I was disappointed to see there's still quite a bit of a learning curve for the average bear. (Via Scoble)

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About the Author:
Steve Rubel is a PR strategist with nearly 16 years of public relations, marketing, journalism and communications experience. He currently serves as a Senior Vice President with Edelman, the largest independent global PR firm.

He authors the Micro Persuasion weblog, which tracks how blogs and participatory journalism are changing the public relations practice.