Feed readers hide blog attention from ad metrics

Nielsen/NetRatings studies web surfing behavior. For example, in January 2005

• People surfed at least daily
• They went to 62 domains a month
• Look at 30-35 pages per session, about 45 seconds each

By comparison, some bloggers using newsreaders, like Robert Scoble, can keep up with a thousand blogs in the time others visit a few dozen. These blog readers:

• Grab fresh stuff from blogs continuously.
• Discover dozens of new blogs each month.
• Consume 300-350 posts per session, most for 3 to 5 seconds each.

So RSS newsreaders, still in very early adoption, distort the numbers used in advertising metrics. Why?

Newsreaders change reader behavior, sometimes by an order of magnitude:

• They load feeds in the background. This cuts network latency from that 45 seconds.
• They only show the fresh stuff. And hide blogs you don't need to visit today. Robert Scoble says only a third of the weblogs he follows update on any given day.
• They strip away distractions. Fonts, colors, banners, advertising, and sidebars aren't in feeds. So readers don't need to find their way on each new page before focusing on the text.
• They present for efficient reading. The feeds are shown in ways that support skimming and navigation. Headline scanning, the "river of posts", and folder tree/feed navigation help drill down. Some include headline tickers, balloons or other alerts for peripheral notifice of updates. All let you scan a hundred headlines in a minute.

To Do:

1. Research reader behavior down to the post level using newsreaders, instrumented to record actions and timing.
2. Design how to blend these findings with "traditional" surfing behavior.
3. Explore how advertising, subscriptions, and other economics are affected by using newsreaders.