Venture capitalist Bill Burnham writes:
“a new Neilson study … reveals only 11% of blog readers use RSS and that a whooping 66% of blog readers don’t even know what RSS is. These figures should be a bit sobering for VCs and the rest of Silicon Valley because not only do 100% of VCs seem to know what RSS is but it seems like 66% of them have already invested in an RSS/Blog related start-up. Some guys are even apparently trying to raise an RSS themed VC fund.
“Fact is, if you wander just a little bit outside of Geek-centric world of tech-related and VC-related blogs what you quickly discover is that RSS feeds are few and far between. Take political blogs for example. A couple of weeks ago I noticed that one of the political blogs I enjoy, which also happens to be in the top half of the Top 500 feeds, didn’t appear to have an RSS feed. I contacted the author and asked him if he had an RSS feed and he asked me “What’s an RSS feed?”.”
…”I don’t think such behavior indicates that RSS is doomed or that it is a passing fad (in fact it may just indicate that we are in the early stages of something huge and there’s still plenty of time left to make RSS related investments), but I do think it indicates that RSS still has a long way to go to mainstream adoption.
“Perhaps most importantly, I think it underscores that VCs have to be careful not overestimate near term adoption rates. Just because something is “hot” within the incestuous and self-centered world of Silicon Valley doesn’t mean that it is hot elsewhere or even destined to be hot elsewhere.”