I remember when RSS feeds started becoming popular in 2005. Many bloggers said RSS was going to be the death of e-mail.
Some even made the bold prediction that e-mail newsletters would be obsolete in a couple of years.
Well it’s 5 years later, and even though RSS is more well known and understood, there are thousands of people who still prefer e-mail updates.
Take my blog for example. I usually publish my posts on Monday, but my Feedburner e-mail goes out Tuesday morning. That’s also when I get the majority of my comments on any given post.
Also, my Feedburner e-mail subscription count recently passed my RSS feed reader count.
Now, a lot of this may have to do with my niche. I tend to target beginners so that could be a reason why I have so many people who still prefer e-mail. Perhaps a large part of my audience still doesn’t understand RSS.
On the flip side, a blog about Internet technology may have opposite results. So I do think the niche plays a role.
Nevertheless, as I was checking my stats over the weekend, it brought me back to the days when people predicted RSS would kill e-mail. That hasn’t happened quite yet.
So if you aren’t giving people the option to subscribe to your blog by e-mail, you could be hurting your readership.
How about you? Have you noticed any trends with your blog readership? Do you follow blogs with RSS readers, or do you read them the old fashioned way?
Hello Lisa,
You are a God-send. I am doing research using your sites basically. I wiil start my blog soon, and I may use RSS feed on my site. I have never used RSS before, but it looks like a good idea
Normally im prefer direct to the url,but some blog like your site im always stick to get feed so i can follow your psost,anyway your site really enhance my view
I still love to read blog in old fashion way, go straight to the url. Unless I am away from home and my office and don’t have time, RSS will be the 1st choice for me during that time.
Lisa,
First of all, you have a wonderful and informative site. Keep up the awesome work. I have a newly established site with a decent amount of visitors and have found the news letter subscription to work fairly well. After reading this post, I think RSS reader is the way to go.
Thanks
how u have got your website ?
hv u made it yourself or it is rented like?
i hv read ur untold adsense facts it’s very good.can u suggest me a topic for my blog?
plz reply soon !
On the advice of one of those “work from home” books, I actually created separate email accounts for contact me, affiliates, social, etc. It makes it ever so much easier to read posts in my email on my terms. I have an RSS reader but it felt like something else that I was obligated to log in to and I have enough of those! Lol.
.-= MsKatrina´s last blog … How to make a clickable wordpress header image =-.
I have hundreds of rss feeds which I use Google Reader with. No I don’t read them all – no time for that. I end up Marking all read very often (Shift+A in Google Reader) and sometimes I hate to feel like I missed something that could have been important. But overall it’s a great way to keep up with topics of interest for me (like this blog!).
.-= Eric D. Greene´s last blog … Conte Crayon – Self Portrait =-.
I only have 1 subscriber to my feeds. My blog is just beginning to start to get to people. But this person is reading through email and I feel that’s the way most people will want to go.
.-= Nick´s last blog … Today in Swagbucks: Weekend Edition 5/29 and 5/30 =-.
I never check my RSS, on the other hand there are only 2 or 3 blogs that I subscribe to via email. One that I really like uses FeedBlitz instead of the traditional FeedBurner. I’m considering the switch for my own blog. Building a subscriber list with FeedBlitz offers advantages over FeedBurner including sending out exclusive content like newsletters and it allows you to have more control. Managing all of the options in FeedBurner can be a hassle at times.
.-= Ileane @ Ms. Ileane Speaks´s last blog … Buzz Besties – BuzzerList, Bit.ly Quick Tip, Blogger Bon Voyage =-.
I prefer RSS feeds. Like many others have said, I just don’t need any more messages in my inbox. Regular emails can be overwhelming by itself.
.-= Aaron´s last blog … Memorial Day Special Offers =-.
I think you can change the time your feed burner email goes out in wordpress settings
.-= Kharim´s last blog … Blog Commenting: What It Has Done For Me =-.
Personally, I like RSS better, because when you want to see the latest posts from a specific blog, it’s easy to do so, and it allows you to get through the posts very quickly.
E-mail, though, is a bit more difficult, because you have the update’s mixed in with your own personal e-mail’s. Also, if you subscribe to too many blogs, or blogs that post a lot (Mashable or TechCrunch, for example), your inbox will have a lot of e-mail’s and be extremely slow, as well as it will be hard to find your personal e-mail’s.
But I still provide e-mail subscription, of course. It has around the same amount of subscriber’s as my RSS Feed. I’m subscribed to a few e-mail newsletter’s, though, with exclusive content, and I’m currently working on developing my own. Offering bonus content for people who subscribe to your newsletter is a great way to get people to subscribe (you can also do this with hidden text in RSS, but Google will penalize you).
I think RSS is easier to use, but it’s still behind the traditional method of e-mail.
.-= Daniel Johnston´s last blog … Growing Your Novel Skill’s: A Casual Multi-Author Book =-.
Great post Lisa.
Personally, I prefer both RSS and email. It’s nice to have both options and be able to also offer them in my blogs for my readers to decide.
.-= Sonia´s last blog … Find Yourself Saying “I Am Broke, What Can I Do?” – Try These Great Home Business Opportunities! =-.
I’m with Sonia here, I like to do both. For sites I really enjoy keeping up with (like this one ;-)) I actually insert the rss feeds directly into my gmail account.
So I can read my emails, and at the same time scroll through rss feed and see what the latest posts are. Works great for me!
.-= Michele´s last blog … Using ALT and TITLE Attributes For Your Images =-.
RSS is better once you understand it. The key is “once you understand it.” Email everyone understands. I didn’t fully understand RSS feeds until I took a technology course while getting my Masters Degree in Education. Not many people take tech courses to improve their knowledge base of Web 2.0.
.-= Dave from Running Tips´s last blog … The Steve Magness Interview with tips4running.com =-.
i think RSS is really a big mystery to most layman users. even as a techy i really don’t subscribe to many blogs because frankly i don’t like being bombarded by constant hype – i’d rather just check in when i am ready to read up at my leisure.
at this point rss for me is really only used to pull/push data from one place to another…i tend to think until it becomes just super GUI PHD (push here dummy) friendly most folks will either not subscribe by it, use email, or just visit a site/blog rather than use something they don’t understand or see little value in.
Email will not go anywhere..lol Just like the telephone.. always a hard worker.
Email is easier for people to read and manage what they are reading.. RSS is great but many non net savvy people have no idea how to use it or even care when they can just as easy get it thru their email something everyone knows.
.-= John Paul Aguiar´s last blog … Breaking Into The Top 20 Internet Marketers Online With No List =-.
Lisa, I’d have to agree with you. I have about 20% more email subscribers right now. Given my target audience, I expect this trend to continue with a greater spike in email subscriptions.
Great tip for those who may not be offering email subscriptions though.
Personally, being subscribed to nearly 300 blogs, I prefer RSS over email, though with Gmail filtering it is just as easy to subscribe via email and filter accordingly to keep things out of my inbox. But I like the simplicity, organizational ability, and elegance of my reader, having everything all in one place.
For my readers I offer various subscription options like RSS, email, Twitter, and Facebook. RSS is the number one option chosen, but twitter is number two, and accounts for a lot of traffic to my site.
.-= Michael´s last blog … HIV: The Myth Exploded – 5 False Predictions of the AIDS Establishment =-.
Because I follow so many blogs I prefer to keep up via RSS, but that’s only because I follow so many and I don’t want it to overcloud my inbox. However for me, I don’t see email becoming a thing of the past any time soon. I’d prefer email over RSS. In fact, my current blog is the first blog I’ve ever had where my email subscriber count has always outnumbered my RSS count. My email count is quadruple the amount of my RSS, so I can totally agree that people still prefer email vs RSS.
Thanks so much for prompting this disucssion, Lisa! I always wonder how folks are reading my blog since I offer both RSS and email subscriptions.
Personally, I do a mixture of both but prefer email. I always read my email updates and thanks to GMail filters, I can manage my subscriptions easily. As for RSS, I use Google Reader but rarely get over there to read the backlog.
Bottom line, if the blog sends an email, I’ll read it almost immedieately and then go the website to comment or follow up. If the blog only offers RSS, I’ll subscribe but will be less likely to read posts in a timely manner.
.-= Michael / South Bay Foodies´s last blog … Truvia: An Artificial Sweetener that Keeps It Real =-.
I love the variety of ways available to read to blog posts. The savvy tend to use RSS and the not so savvy subscribe via email. Personally I love the Google Feedburner thing. Sweet and simple.
.-= Wayne Farley´s last blog … Air India Crash – Was it Human Error? =-.
RSS feeds are becoming more and more mainstream, many people don’t even realize they are using RSS because the delivery mechanisms have become very slick.
Personally I use it for *tons* of stuff from monitoring forums, to following blogs, ego alerts etc…
.-= Wild Animal Gifts´s last blog … Emperor Penguins =-.
My email is alive and doing well. Every now and then I need to unsubscribe from a few people because it gets too overbearing.
More and more people are catching on to the importance of building a list. If anything, more people are promoting through email than ever before.
I keep a few rss feeds on my Igoogle desktop, but I generally visit the blogs to get the full effect of the message.
.-= Jordy´s last blog … How to Get Domain Name Ideas That Produce Good Results =-.
personally i prefer rss, because i can click links and keep digging deeper if needed/wanted. email is good for those who like to access content offline through outlook for example.
as an owner of multiple online businesses, i have observed that those who subscribe to the rss are more of the savvy crowd. these are my blog readers (make money online niche). however, most of my other niche content websites are geared toward the average information seeker online, who may or may not be e-savvy. in my experience most are not, and prefer email.
but yes, your choice of usage depends on 1) the type of reader you target 2) the behavior pattern you expect, or want to encourage. best is to offer both as Lisa suggests and does.
.-= sunil´s last blog … nursing practice in dubai =-.
I actually like RSS. Google Reader works very nicely with the iPhone so it’s great to sift through updates I want and everything is neatly organized. I also like how it marks the posts you’ve read so you can come back later and catch up.
I subscribe to too many blogs to use e-mail. Something about a lot of e-mail makes me feel overwhelmed, but I don’t feel that way if I have a lot to read in my RSS reader. For whatever reason, a pile-up of e-mail makes me feel like I have to read it right away, but I don’t feel that way with RSS. Funny how our minds work.
I can’t even see the point in RSS, Social Media makes it slowly obsolete.
I prefer email anytime. But honestly, I want people to come to my blog – it’s the overall experience that blows them away, not just a single post in their reader.
.-= Mars Dorian´s last blog … Are you Otaku worthy ? =-.
That’s very true! I subscribe to a lot of sites (this one included) by following them on Twitter. No RSS or email at all.
I “like” on Facebook too but never see any site updates amongst all the other updates there.
.-= Brad´s last blog … Where to buy Sailor Moon’s Star Locket and other questions… Answered! =-.
If you asked me a year ago, I would’ve said forget RSS, I prefer to subscribe by email. That’s what prompted me to be sure to offer both RSS and email subscription options on my blogs. Of course, now that time has passed and I noticed my emails were becoming unmanageable, I had to switch to subscribing via RSS only, so that I can read my feeds at my leisure instead of having it fill up my inbox.
Most of my readers are RSS, but my email subscribers continues to grow daily.
I like the idea of email subscribers, though because it gives you better and closer access to them – I don’t exactly like the idea of having no clue who my RSS subscribers, but I guess that’s the point of the RSS feed.
.-= Kiesha @ We Blog Better´s last blog … The Simplest Guest Post Contest II =-.
I actually don’t even know how to subscribe to this.. feed thingy. I don’t really like it and I never understood why people subscribe.
But since I read it’s good to add it on your site (and now I see it is), I just leave it there. I prefer e-mails if I subscribe to a site (yours too for example)