RSS Slow to Take Off with Teens

Forrester just emailed over a new report that says that blogging is booming among North American youth aged 13 to 17 years. One in five online of these teens now regularly read blogs, and 13% publish their own. This is compared with just 10% and 6% of adults, respectively.

Here's the rub though. RSS feeds currently suffer from very low awareness among both youth and adults. As you can see from the chart below, the vast majority haven't even heard of RSS. However, Forrester says adoption is poised to grow rapidly as consumers better understand its use. Education has to play a role in getting more students using feeds. I wonder what the studies in India and China would reveal.

Comments

[Judy J]

As a mother of a twelve-going-on-thirteen-year old, RSS can't compete with IM. I think for young people, it's the immediate connection that counts. RSS keeps you informed and on top of issues and changes, but that may not be as attractive to a teen.

[Patrick]

I'm 17 and have been using RSS alot for the past 2 years and if i don't get my hourly fix of Newsfire RSS newsreadin...well I don't know what I would do but sufficee to say it wouldn't be pleasant. But I would aggree that most other teens I know don't know what RSS is and don't really care to learn what it can do for them but I say just give them time like the rest of ther world they'll all come around sooner or later.
Patrick

[Klim]

Not surprised. RSS is one of the things you have to experience to understand. You can't explain it to people (at least I have not been successful).
A year ago, I heard about it but thought it was useless, no matter how many articles tried to persuade me. I didn't know how much time it would save visiting websites everyday, and missing out on fast updating news.
Now I have several dozens of feeds. Simple addiction. :)

[Blake]

I just don't see any other way to view the Web at this point. All they need to do is get in front of it and they will realize how useful a tool it is.

Maybe there is room here for someone to create an awareness group or business in which they tour the country and teach RSS to schools. Who ever starts it first - hire me!

[Tac]

I think that in order for RSS to take off the readers have to become more readily available and easier to use. I wonder how RSS will take off when IE7 comes out. I bet we'll see huge gains in acceptance then, kind of like podcasts took off when iTunes supported them.

[Bruce Barber]

I think the "tipping point" point for RSS is going to occur when it is a built in feature in all browsers.

I'm a Mac user, and having the capability to read RSS feeds with Safari has dramatically changed they way I use the web (much in the same way that TiVo has changed the way I watch television).

[Rich]

I'm a 19 year old who's been using RSS for a couple years now. I've definitely noticed a complete unawareness of it within my social group, in which the ages range from 17 right up to 24.

I think RSS is still a pretty specialist thing, associated with geeks only. I hope it becomes more mainstream.

[Mike]

I recall a Yahoo study that says most people who use RSS don't know it. ;)

[optimus]

Don't worry. The teenagers will eventually learn that RSS can be used for internet pornography and gossip. Then it will take off. Patience, grasshopper.

[Gary Bourgeault]

I would tend to think that the 20% reading blogs is done mostly through word-of-mouth as far as how they learn about them. Especially through one of their favorite mediums: IM

That along with My Place would be my guess as to where they get their info.

Another thought that comes to me with these figures is that I would be willing to bet why it is so slow to "take" with teens is it has a homework, research type of feel to it, and I'm sure that is not one of the things they want to do in their spare time.

[Tom]

I can think of three reasons. First, young people who blog use the same platform as most of their immediate friends (e.g. xanga). Then they just keep the most frequently read blogs on their platform's version of a blogroll. Second, information about rss and how to use it circulates among blogs written by adults who blog about (ahem) rss, so who's going to read that? Third, most of these young potential rss users aren't in an environment where the adult s (i.e. parents & teachers) are using rss or even reading blogs. I taught my teenage son to use bloglines a year ago and he now uses it all the time, for all kinds of syndicated genre (blogs, news, video), but seeing for himself how much time it saved me was probably a big factor.