Digg Does The Google Reader Survey That Google Should’ve Done

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.