Logically, it had to be true. A new survey on reporters' online activities shows that our efforts in the new media space are indeed reaching reporters in healthy numbers.

According to the study by Bulldog Reporter and TEK Group, called the 2007 Journalist Survey on Media Relations Practices:

• 16% of journalists subscribe to 5 or more RSS feeds
• more than a quarter of journalists regularly read 5 or more blogs
• nearly 70% follow at least one blog

Here are some additional details, as reported by A Feed is Born:

I posted the following this morning on my NewsNosh blog. I think it's relevant here as well:

I've been thinking a lot about Web 2.0 recently, particularly given all the excitement and discussion about sites like MySpace, digg, Facebook, YouTube, etc. The common perception seems to be that Web. 2.0 and social media are only for young people.

"I'm too old for social media," media writer Michael Wolff said in a recent post by Valleywag.

I just don't buy this.

Yesterday was a very big day for blogging and podcasting -- particularly for those of us using these new media vehicles in PR and overall corporate communications.  Do you know why?

The reason is this: IE 7. 

IE 7 is the new version of Microsoft's Internet Explorer Web browser, and it's big news for us because it includes RSS feeds.  When browsing a page that has an RSS feed in IE 7 you can see via a lit, orange RSS chicklet that there is a feed, subscribe to the feed, and look at the feed updates right in your "favorites" window. 

It has struck me that the key to understanding the value of blogs and podcasts is comfort with RSS feeds.  Unfortunately, relatively few of us have reached this point.

That doesn't, however, mean it isn't worth the effort.  As communicators, we need to be on the cutting edge of this trend.

Google has just rolled out a new feedreader that may be the best out there.  It is free, easy to use -- and it makes following feeds a pleasure.  It can handle both blog feeds and podcasts, embedding a player right into the feedreader.  It looks like this:

We've talked before about the use of interactive media and blogging to get one's point across if, during a media interview, it is taken out of context.

• There was GM using its blog to answer a New York Times column back in June.

• Back in January we talked about Mark Cuban posting on his blog an e-mail interview trail with a New York Times reporter for all to see.

Now, Steve Rubel, on his Micro Persuasion blog, has been thinking about the future of interviews. He suggests that perhaps they might be done entirely via blog posts and RSS distribution. An excerpt from his provocative post:

Broadband adoption soared 59% during the 12 months through March 2006 among middle- and working-class households, according to a recent AP report I saw on Yahoo! News.

This strongly suggests to me that the great growth we have seen in podcasting, blogging and RSS will continue for some time and that these media formats have a good chance of becoming mainstream channels. 

For those of us using these distribution methods to complement our PR efforts, it seems clear we're on the right track!  The AP story explained:

We all know that some of the newer forms of communication -- RSS feeds, blogs, podcasts -- have generated a great deal of buzz.  The question is, where are they going?

Will they grow to become a permanent piece of the marketing/PR mix, or will they fade away after the initial enthusiasm is gone?

In a post today, Church of the Customer Blog cites an AdAge report that describes expected marketing spend on various forms of new media.  It shows they are getting serious attention from marketers -- in the form of actual budget!