FYI,
I don’t think that was 29% - It was 29 out of 860! That’s a meager 3%

GS

I’m with you as far as leaving out any talk about RSS and XML and feeds and all that. Why does anyone need to know any of that?

In my spare time I need to boot up one of my Macs (which I rarely use for Web surfing or e-mail - for other reasons) and go see how it works in that world… My guess is it’s easier.

The RSS link “What’s this?” on this Yahoo! Web Analytics Group page goes to a long page of explanatory text that runs beyond the fold. Too much information and no graphics!

Show me a simple three-step process with big graphical icons! Like the excellent one Blogger.com uses for its blog creation instructions.

There’s a great opportunity here to simplify RSS subscription.

Don’t tell me about internal combustion, just show me how to turn ignition the key.

For you, I will do it.

Robbin

But, before getting into it, has anyone found a good, succinct explanation of what RSS is and how to grab a link and put it in a reader? I haven’t.

A few weeks ago, Robbin blogged here about the fact that there are a million techie tools, services, etc. available for the Web, e-mail, and so on — and so few professionals working in Internet-related fields that know about them or know how to use them. Of course, the number of average Internet users that do is even less.

Pew Internet & American Life Project reported in Jan of 2005 that 62% of Internet users did not know what a blog was. That was Internet users, so the fact that 29% of 860 people “on the street” knew what a blog or Vlog is is really quite impressive.

But out of these only one uses a podcatcher, reader, or aggregator. Is that right? And 4 were familiar with the idea? Out of 860! Less than 0.5%.

Although the sample is not ideal, it does seem significant that only one person uses RSS. Not surprising though. I have been building Web sites and other e-communications for 8 years and I just took the time to figure out how to use a reader a few weeks ago.

At this point, I still don’t find the aggregator I’m using (Thunderbird) all that useful. Maybe because I’m accustomed to using other things like Bloglines.

I just put a FeedBurner link on The McBuzzBlog a few minutes ago. I had to use a reader for a week or two (collecting links and putting them into the reader) before FeedBurner’s code insertion instructions made any sense to me.

The fact that so few “average” folks know about or use the latest Internet technology is not necessarily a bad thing, though. It leaves plenty of room for new products and services.

Really Simple Syndication is still not that simple, and, in general, making things easy is not that easy.

For a related rant about browser headaches and Web standards, see Web Standards Solutions Are Not Practical or Helpful.

Again, if anyone has found a good, succinct explanation of what RSS is and how to grab a link and put it in a reader, please post it here.

I’m doing what Robbin does (which is usually a good strategy) by putting a single feedburner link on my blog. But I want to have a link next to it that says, “What’s this?” The problem is, the link has to go to a page with a good, succinct explanation of what RSS is and how to put a feed link in a reader, and I know Robbin has a lot on her plate right now….

Of 860 street respondents, the unsorted (non-demographic) breakdown is as follows:

Knows what a weblog or Vlog is - 29

Regularly reads blogs/ views Vlogs or listens to podcasts - 13

Understands basic diffrence between blogs and web sites - 2

Uses a podcatcher - reader - aggregator - 1

Has familiartiy of Feed Concept or subscription mechanism - 4

these are only a handful of the questions and conversations I engaged in.

I was amazed that many of the respondents were ages 19-30, and that they had no concept of blogs, vlogs, and syndication/subscription concepts - many saw no added value after agreeing to talk for while about the technology.

Not encouraging numbers….