Over at Micro Persuasion, Steve Rubel reports on some research by Forrester Research, Inc. indicating that RSS penetration among Internet users may have peaked at 11 percent.

Yes, you read that right: just 11 percent.

Sure, almost 50 percent of Internet businesses have added RSS feeds to their websites, and RSS adoption among Internet users has increased from 2 percent in 2005 to 11 percent now. But if Forrester Research’s findings are accurate then of the 89 percent of users who don’t use RSS feeds, only 16 percent are somewhat interested, and just 3 percent are very interested, in using them.

According to Forrester, marketers have not done enough to promote the benefits of RSS to their customers. Probably because they’re too busy promoting the benefits of RSS to other marketers! And there ARE benefits - just ask a guy like Peter Drew about the power of RSS in terms of search engine optimization.

But when it comes to consumers using RSS, maybe Steve Rubel is right when he says that “feeds are way too geeky for most and the benefit does not outweigh the learning curve.”

Rubel also makes a great point: just because RSS adoption may have peaked, it doesn’t mean other online optin communications aren’t working. Writes Rubel:

“The Facebook newsfeed, Twitter and Friendfeed are perfect examples of opt-in vehicles that bring content you care about to you… In each case, you’re total in control. You can unsubscribe from individuals or groups and tailor the stream so that what you want finds you… RSS is only one form of opt-in communications. The potential is bigger when you look more broadly to social networking. This larger promise still holds and as the technologies become more invisible the newsfeed could even one day subsume RSS.”

Source: Steve Rubel, “RSS Adoption at 11% and it May Be Peaking, Forrester Says”, Micro Persuasion, October 20, 2008