SFN report: RSS, video and contextual ads top online features of top 100 U.S. newspapers

Posted by Erina Lin on February 18, 2010 at 4:24 PM

In the United States, the top online features of the top 100 newspapers in 2008 include RSS, video and contextual ads - each with 100 percent penetration, according to the Bivings Group report, The Use of the Internet by American's Newspapers.

Other popular features included photos, local weather, section RSS, reporter blogs, social bookmarks and reporter blog comments, with more than nine out of 10 sites adopting these features, SFN's World Digital Media Trends 2009 reported.

Features that are still not popular include RSS ads, tags, social networking, registration, user generated articles and videos - less than 20 percent have those features.

The usages of RSS, most popular, video, blog comments, comments on articles and bookmarking are all on the rise from 2006 to 2008, according to the Bivings Group.

Podcasts, blogroll, and registration, however, experienced a downturn. About half of the newspaper sites had podcast features in 2007 but the percentage dropped to 40 percent just a year later. Blogroll declined from 24 percent in 2006 to 21 percent in 2007, while registration reached a peak of 29 percent in 2007, but fell to 11 percent in 2008, according to the report, World Digital Media Trends 2009, released by SFN and the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers.