July 07, 2003
RSS & Syndicated Feeds
In the comments to my last post, Lane asks
What do people use to read RSS feeds? And is it really better to read a blog's text stripped of all visual appeal?
Well, those are two really big questions. Fortunately, there's an
entire list of syndicated news readers. I really couldn't say authoritatively which are most popular, but I'm rather fond of
NewzCrawler and
NewsGator. The choice is very idiosyncratic, and I encourage anyone who hasn't used a news reader before to download and try several before settling on just one. If you fall in love with reading blogs via a news reader, I am certain you'll find one that suits your particular tastes and you just can't live without. Reading posts through my news reader has become second nature -- just like reading my email.
Now for that second question. I have several answers.
Notification. Depending on how bored I am, I set my news reader to check and download new posts anywhere from every couple of hours to every hour. I don't have to spend the time visiting each site to ascertain whether a new posting has been made. Neither do I have to rely on updating mechanisms like those found in my
blogrolls (which, I might add, is nowhere near the total number of blogs I read). Not all blogs automatically ping weblogs.com when there are new posts. Moreover, I don't actually use my blogrolls to read blogs -- I use my news reader, and a bookmark organization program. Both of these programs save me the time of visiting sites. However, I have to set aside time to go through my bookmarks, whereas new posts from blogs with syndicated feeds automatically pop up in my news reader. That's pretty handy.
Organization. With my newsreader, I can mark posts I want to save for later, either to read more extensively, or to save for blogfodder (to post, reply to, think about, whatever). Plus, all of my posts are automatically organized into multiple folders depending on how I categorized the site when adding the subscription into my newsreader. If I only have the time to read law student posts, I just head to that folder. Easy Peasy!
Visual Appeal. Reading posts through a news reader doesn't mean I don't ever visit the site. First off, not all feeds are set to contain the full text of the post (mine has one that does, and one that doesn't). Personally, I prefer the full text so I don't necessarily have to visit (but often I will, whether to comment, look at it, or whatever). Many news feeds don't contain the whole post, which often drives me crazy, but certainly forces me to visit. I
despise RSS feeds that basically notify me there is a post, but nothing more. Often, I don't even spend the time to visit, even though I might love the blog and know that there's good stuff there. My time is scarce and quite valuable, so I cut corners.
This might seem a bit strange coming from someone who (I think!) obviously spent a good deal of time on the visual appeal of her site (well, for IE users, anyways). I'm not sure if I've answered the question totally, but in the end, you can still get the time savings and ease of use
plus visual appeal by simply clicking on the link in the news reader to the full post.
My advice? Get an RSS feed. A real one. Your readership will increase, I promise, if only by one (me!). [Note, however, if you are using those free web-based statistics, you won't necessarily be able to tell.]
UPDATE: You can also do
cool things like this with RSS feeds.