RSS Observations
Early on in the process of blogging I learned of an RSS reader. If you don't know what that is, all you need to know for starters is you need one. It changed my virtual life. I've stuck with Bloglines for the past several years, but alas, this weekend I switched. I decided to move all my feeds over to Google reader, primarily because I wanted to put it on my Google apps page with everything else, and I have had a few problems with Bloglines site in the past week or two.
That being said, I still haven't been able to get the Google reader app on my Google page, but hopefully we'll figure that out soon. Rather than export all my feeds (which I didn't realize I could do when I started, but I can always find a reason that what I did was better) I went to each blog and subscribed again. Here's a few things I noticed:
- A lot of you changed your feed at some point. So while I thought you just slacked off of blogging, I just wasn't getting your feed. I'm back now.
- Some of you, however, haven't blogged in forever. So, if you haven't blogged in over 3 months, you are no longer in my reader. If you decide to get back in the saddle, let me know.
- Pet peeve. Didn't realize this just now, but I really want you to know. If your feed only sends me the first few sentences, CHANGE IT PLEASE!! I am not reading your posts. Maybe you did that to get more traffic to your blog for your stats so you could feel better about yourself. Outside of a few family members, and maybe some people at my church, I love you, but if I have to go to your site every time to read you posts, I'm just not gonna read it. That's why I have an RSS reader! When I want to comment or see your flash widget, I'll come visit. Otherwise, please share your content with me.
- And finally, but most importantly, make it easy to subscribe to your blog! I was amazed at how difficult it was to find a subscribe link on many blogs. Some from people who I know should know better. There were actually several that forced me to copy and paste the URL. Generally, if I find a blog I think I might want to follow but I can't subscribe easily, it probably won't make it onto my blogroll. Some of you may think it's ridiculous to think you care if you're on my reader, but most of you are so dependent on stats to make you feel better (it takes one to know one, unfortunately) which is why you do things like the bullet point above.
Just some thoughts from my RSS switch. One other thing. I realized it's about to update the links on my blog as well. So perhaps I'll have some time in the ATL hotel at Catalyst next week to do so. Which means 2 things:
- Again, if you haven't blogged in more than 3 months, you will be removed. Of course, you probably don't care much then and aren't even reading this.
- If you link here, and I'm not linked to you, I owe you some serious link love! Sorry I'm behind. Leave me a comment so I can be sure to get you on here.
And again, if you don't have an RSS reader, go get one and subscribe here. It makes life much easier!
How about you?
What RSS reader do you read?
Agree with any of those thoughts? Disagree?
Do share.
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