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When WordBiz Report surveyed email marketers about RSS, 74% claimed to be familiar with the term.

Yet only 37% had downloaded a newsreader or subscribed to a Web-based RSS reader. Only 30% subscribed to blogs or other syndicated news feeds. A scant 23% regularly read blogs via RSS.

When asked to define RSS, responses ranged from:

-- "I've heard the term but am not sure what it means"
-- to the seasonally appropriate: "Rudolf's Shiny Signal - it's Christmas
after all and I know he'll guide that sleigh just right"
-- to the technically correct: "It stands for both Rich Site Summary and
Really Simple Syndication. RSS is a content syndication protocol that uses
XML."

The WordBiz survey highlights the fact that most marketers still don't understand the significance of RSS as an online publishing strategy; namely, that RSS sidesteps delivery through email. A whopping 68% of the more than 370 marketing pros surveyed identified their single largest concern about online marketing as "rising above inbox clutter." Another 60% claimed spam filters as their biggest headache.

"Despite the recent attention to RSS in the mainstream press, we're still at the tip of the iceberg when it comes to understanding and adoption of RSS as a business communications channel," said Debbie Weil, Publisher of WordBiz Report. "With RSS feeds, you can reach a willing and waiting audience -- without worrying about spam filters or inbox clutter. With the simplicity of My Yahoo!'s RSS feeds, I predict that 2005 will be the year of RSS adoption."

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