It’s ironic that the best survey of Google Reader users that’s probably ever been done is being done by Digg.
About a month after announcing its plans to build an RSS reader and asking Google Readers to help out by taking a survey, Digg has started sharing some of the survey results.
Digg says it’s already received 8,000 survey responses (an astonishing number, in my opinion), and no surprise: The data proves that Google Reader has a lot of power users. It makes sense because RSS never reached mainstream acceptance and has been a popular tool primarily among information connoisseurs.
For example, 80 percent of Google Reader users say they check feeds more than once a day.
And about 40 percent follow more than 100 feeds.
Digg also says it’ll use the survey results to guide development of its own reader. Two-thirds of the responders said they use keyboard shortcuts, so that’s on Digg’s to-do list. But fewer use search inside Google Reader, so that feature may not be included in the first version of Digg’s reader.
You can’t help but wonder how and why Google — a company that lives and breathes data — never bothered to survey Google Reader users to measure their passion for the product before they decided to shut it down on July 1st.
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