RSS Users; Three times as valuable

Nielsen has measured it!

NEW YORK - September 20, 2005 - Nielsen//NetRatings, a global leader in Internet media and market research, today reported that RSS users are significantly more engaged in online news than non-users, visiting an average of 10.6 news sites compared with 3.4 news sites for non-users.

"Convenience is the primary reason respondents gave for using RSS feeds," said Jon Gibs, senior research manager, Nielsen//NetRatings. "Once the technology has been adopted, users can easily add new content. This allows news-hungry Web visitors to sample a wide variety of news sources," he continued.

Not only do RSS users visit more news Web sites than non-users, they also visit those sites more frequently. RSS users visited the top 20 news Web sites nearly three times as often as non-users and all other news Web sites four times as often. This means that sites outside of the top 20 properties may be among the greatest beneficiaries of RSS.

Notably, 83 percent of survey respondents who were identified by clickstream data as RSS users were unaware that they were using RSS technology. This can be explained by sites such as MyYahoo!, where users can customize content without knowing anything about the RSS feeds that make that customizing possible.

Note that embedding the reading in the brand is key to adoption.

Which is exactly why NewsGator has all its wonderful APIs, and Private Label business...

The RSS Blues

NewsGator's own Leland Rucker sings The RSS Blues.  Leland (NewsGator's multi-talented Editor, responsible for content and the popular daily Editor's Choice), lends his musical and lyrical abilities to this tongue-in-cheek musical review of the world of RSS. 

This particular rendition definitely feels like the blues.  Anyone out there ready for a hip-hop or heavy metal version?  It may be time to host another contest.

You Can't Judge a Blook

In NewsGator’s never-ending quest to bring subscribers the newest in web content (and vocabulary), we have logged a new category under Books: Blooks.

So what is a blook, you ask? Essentially it’s a book in blog form. It’s similar to the serial novel concept that was popular before video games and television. Tom Wolfe serialized his Bonfire of the Vanities in Rolling Stone magazine awhile back, and Stephen King’s The Green Mile was originally released as a serial.

One of the things most fascinating about RSS and syndication technology in general is that it constantly lends itself to new applications. The “blook” seems perfect for the blogosphere, and perhaps it will become another alternative for fiction writers to get people to read their work without going through a publisher.

Our first Blook entry is titled Hackoff.com, described as “an historic murder/mystery set in the Internet bubble and rubble” by author Tom Evslin, who calls himself a “retired serial CEO” at his website. In the first chapter, the CEO of a dotcom is found in his office … well, I’m not going to spoil it for you. Subscribe to Hackoff.com and find out for yourself.

And if you find other good “blooks,” let us know so we can add them to our taxonomy.

API Developer Competition

Summer is winding down (for those of us in the Northern Hemisphere, anyway), and now that we've opened up our API, we thought this might be a good time to host a friendly competition.  Basically, we're looking for the coolest applications (using the NewsGator API, of course) in three different categories:

• Windows applications
• Mac applications
• Cross platform/mobile/web applications

The competition is open to everyone (age 21 and over), and we'll be rewarding the first and second place winners in each category with:

• a Dell Latitude D610 or Apple Powerbook G4 (first place winner's choice)
• AND (for the runners up) - the hot new iPod nano

Get details about the competition (which runs through November 11) here, or go right to the API.  Good luck. 

News

Don Dodge from Microsoft's Emerging Business Team (ex-Groove) has nice things to say about us:

Newsgator is a blog user’s best friend. It is my principal RSS reader and I use it every day. The Outlook plug in is flawless, elegant, and intuitive in design. Anyone can use Newsgator in Outlook with absolutely no training required. If you can read email you can use Newsgator. It is that simple, yet incredibly powerful under the covers.

In case you missed it, read Greg's post on RSS Security.  Moonwatcher adds to the dialogue.

For folks wondering;  Nick B. of FeedDemon and TopStyle fame is doing OK.  He has already blogged -- say no more... We are all very happy 'bout that, and wishing him well.

Don't forget our limited-time API developer competition -- must be cool; IPod nano's are second prize!

Hurricane Relief

Hurricane Katrina's devastating effects on the Gulf Coast region have touched all of us in one way or another.  To help with the enormous need residents of the region now face, the NewsGator family is pledging 3% of our revenues for the month of September to the American Red Cross to aid the victims of the storm.  We urge all of our partners, customers and friends to contribute to the relief efforts in whatever manner possible.  For more information on how you can help aid the victims of the storm, click here.