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.