Survey finds analysts not
into RSS, blogs or podcasts
By IR Web Report Staff
A Thomson Financial survey
of North American investment analysts has shone
a light on their technology use and found that
many are still in the dark about new technologies
like RSS and podcasts.
The global financial information and services
giant surveyed 304 sell- and buy-side analysts
in an online poll to probe their needs when
researching companies on the Web.
The survey
found that only 7.4% of respondents said they
used blogs as a resource when researching
companies. Meanwhile, just 7% preferred to receive
information via RSS, far behind outright
favorite email, which 77% said they prefer.
And when it comes to much-hyped podcasting,
the picture is even bleaker. Only 3.7% of analysts
cited them as a source of information they like.
All respondents where U.S. or Canadian analysts.
Adoption rapid in past
six months
However, Thomson Financial VP Corporate
Executive Services David Bairstow points
out that uptake of RSS has been rapid, indicating
that it could well move quickly to the mainstream.
"Six months ago, you didn't hear much
about RSS. Now it is being adopted rapidly.
As more companies begin to offer RSS feeds on
their websites, analysts will find them more
useful," he said.
As for podcasts, Bairstow says their convenience
may drive adoption. He says analysts who are
stretched during compressed earnings periods
may grow to rely on downloadable conference
calls when they cannot attend all calls in person.
IR Web Report's benchmarking survey
finds that only 5% of 525
IR websites reviewed in the past six months
have RSS feeds and fewer still offer podcasts
or MP3 downloads. Put in context, RSS offerings
are up from 1% of companies in the prior six-month
period.
Investors indicate
sites hard to navigate and incomplete
Another important finding from the study is
that investors view IR websites as difficult
to use and not always complete and up to date.
Fully 76% of respondents said difficulty
finding up to date information detracted
from the usefulness of an IR website. Difficulty
printing documents was the second most
common issue at 65%, followed by poor
navigation, selected by 63% of respondents.
On the content side, more than half
of the analysts said sites with insufficient
data and archives were a problem,
while 49% cited outdated information.
These findings reinforce recent
criticism in the media and in comments to
the Securities and Exchange Commission in the
U.S. that companies' online disclosure practices
are poor and need to be addressed, possibly
through new rules or guidelines.
One-third don't like
to register for information
Thomson Financial's survey highlights one another
issue that detracts from the value of IR websites
and may even drive investors away. In the survey,
almost one third of analysts indicated they
don't like registering to access information
on IR websites.
This is something we advise companies to avoid
in our guidelines
for conference call archives. However, most
companies continue to require investors to register
to access webcasts, including most Thomson Financial
clients.
Bairstow said his company defaults to a registration
screen on most of its clients' websites, but
will remove the registration requirement when
companies request it.
Ironically, registration requirements may well
be one reason for the slow adoption of RSS feeds
by analysts.
In a recent development, vendor Shareholder.com
has decided to make investors register to access
RSS feeds on their clients' websites. As we
explained in a recent
Member Brief, this is dumb because it discourages
use of corporate feeds, in part because investors
don't have to register to subscribe to free
RSS feeds anywhere else on the web.
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