According to Forrester Research the use of RSS has reached 11% of US online adults. Steve Rubel and others have discussed the other main finding that of the other 89% only 17% are interested in adopting RSS in the future. The implication being that RSS is running out of steam and needs mass education to continue its growth rate.
However I wonder if this discussion is potentially missing a relatively obvious numeric point. What does 11% of US online adults equate to? With an estimated 220 million US internet users applying 11% gives 24 million that use RSS (and another 26 million who apparently aren’t sure if they do – 12% responded thus). However this assumes that minor users follow the same proportion which may not be the case but for the purpose of this calculation lets accept this limitation. To put this in context this compares with around 60-70 million US users of Facebook and Myspace. Unfortunately the study was only based on a survey of US internet users so it is not possible to extrapolate this analysis across global internet users on a rigorous basis. However if we make the (over?) simplifying assumption that this study is indicative of general RSS use then based on approximately 1.5bn internet users worldwide this would give approximately 165 million RSS users worldwide. As penetration rates go I would say that was still pretty impressive. Obviously these calculations are more back of a postage stamp than back of an envelope 
but they illustrate the point that this percentage implies some fairly big numbers in absolute terms.
The other point to consider is the potential influence implications of RSS subscriptions. What would be really useful to know would be the detailed makeup of the 11% and the sites that they subscribe to. Were it the case for instance that this analysis showed that key influencers and decision makers in certain markets are proportionally more likely to receive their news via RSS its importance in influence terms would be magnified. If anyone has access to the full report and any information on this I would be delighted to hear from you.
No that isn’t my RSS subscriber figure today is Blog Action Day and if I can post this in the next few minutes I will just get in under the wire. With over 12,000 blogs with far more readers than I - 13 million currently according to the site - having already posted some very in depth posts I thought I would just do a little research on the relative frequency of certain related terms in Google. I think the results tell a brief story about how much attention poverty is given.
A search for ”poverty” in Google finds 60 million results. Sounds a lot until you compare it to the following:
“money” - 950 million
“credit” - 723 million
“debt” - 149 million
Of course some of these references will be using the words in other contexts e.g. “it is to his credit”, but these results arguably still reflect the world’s priorities.
But perhaps there is some hope for us yet as a search for “greed” only finds 19 million results - so at least poverty has got that one beaten?
Today’s announcement of £37bn of investment in British banks was accompanied by words from Gordon Brown at his press conference about rewarding “hard work, effort and enterprise” rather than “irresponsibility and risk taking”.
This is a sentiment I agree with wholeheartedly but one I find very strange coming from the government who only a year ago scrapped Taper Relief, effectively increasing the CGT rate for hard working and enterprising small business owners by 80% from 10% to 18%. Given the number of SME’s in the PR industry this is particularly pertinent to this sector.
At the same time they reduced the rate on speculative asset transactions e.g. share sales and buy-to-let from a maximum rate of 40% to the same new rate of 18%. The overall benefit to the Treasury? A reported “massive” £350m - small beer these days!
The government subsequently made a small gesture to the SME community by introducing entrepreneur relief on the first £1m of gains by owner managers - arguably peanuts in the scheme of things.
So at a time when the country needs, as the PM rightly points out, “hard work, effort and enterprise”, they have created a tax environment that draws no distinction between this and “irresponsibility and risk taking” in asset markets. Unless this decision is reversed in the pre-budget report I find I cannot take these messages seriously.
According to various sources the nitty gritty of the Government’s bank recapitalisation plan is going to be announced tomorrow morning. The coverage reminds me of a quote from The West Wing “A billion here a billion there. Sooner or later it starts to add up to real money.” The important point is what will our £39bn/£50bn get us? By my back of an envelope calculations, based on Friday’s closing share prices and the current rumours, taxpayers are indeed (as per ft.com) about to become the controlling shareholders in HBOS and RBS.
Royal Bank of Scotland
Market capitalisation on Friday £11.9bn.
Rumoured ordinary share investment (according to ft.com) £15bn
Post investment shareholding = 15/(15+11.9) = 56%
HBOS
Market capitalisation on Friday £6.5bn.
Rumoured ordinary share investment (according to ft.com) £9bn
Post investment shareholding = 9/(9+6.5) = 58%
Of course the HBOS situation will then be further confused by the rumoured £5bn investment in Lloyds TSB and the (apparently) still planned merger of the two.
Finally there is the issue of whether given the current investment environment we should even be investing on the basis of Friday’s closing price anyway? Shrewd investors know how to take advantage of weakness. It will be interesting to see what deal Gordon Brown will have negotiated for us as his track record isn’t the best or perhaps he is already in bed.
I said in my earlier post about PRNewswire’s pickup and visibility research that I would document my assertion that webitpr’s RealWire service achieves better results. Following PRN President Dave Armon’s comment on my previous post I thought it only fair that I get our pickup comparison data up for all to see.
*Health warning* I can understand potential scepticism as clearly I have a vested interest in these stats portraying us in a good light – as a number of people have pointed out about PRN’s research itself. They are also from our own Proveit tracking system and not from an independent source.
The “headline” statistic is that 76% of the releases that we distributed during the same period (April-June 2008) were picked up at least once in a piece of editorial or blog coverage compared to PRN’s 55%. The table below summarises this and how we compare against PRN’s other measures.
Pickup statistics
Our data is from the entire population of our releases sent in these 3 months. The monitoring period varied depending on the level of service opted for by the client but never exceeded the ten days used by PRN in their study. A pickup represents a piece of editorial or blog coverage that isn’t just a reproduction of the press release itself.
As mentioned in the debate following the PRN release these results represent the combined effort of our clients and us together. Some of the results will be 100% due to us, some 100% due to the client and some a combination of the two.
The other factor to bear in mind is that the PRN research took no account of quality and therefore we are unable to in our comparison. Clearly some coverage is more influential than others and where influence is concerned quality is actually very specific and can’t be measured with something as simple as Page Rank or readership as it is relative to the relevant industry and the audience the organisation concerned is trying to reach.
In conclusion our analysis implies we exceed or at least match PRN and the other big wires services by all of their measures. However our focus is still to get as near to 100% for the pickup statistic as possible by improving our reach and relevance to the recipients of our news and so help our clients to achieve influence online.
