Archive for the 'rss' Category
Wednesday, September 5th, 2007
Update: This blog posts talks about the ignorance of more than half of the blogging world towards RSS. I do think that it’s a matter of time before it becomes like email. And another point that I hadn’t really thought about is the exposure it can give bloggers. I do use an RSS reader, by the way, but I do miss being able to see the blog for what it is.
Nowadays, most sites can be separated into style and content. That means you can design an entire site and syndicate the content (feed) in whatever format you please, allowing tools like Google Reader to make things easy for readers who want to aggregate their favorite blogs and websites.
(And, as a side note, aren’t most websites, that aren’t service oriented, blogs? I remember when tech-saavy friends would make websites in the 90’s, and suddenly realize that there was nothing to write. To much of a hassle to update the html everytime you wanted to write something new about your life, and besides, the 5 mb of free space that your provider gave you was filled with huge gifs anyway. Back then, you would only buy more than 50mb of space if you were running a business. Not the case anymore.)
So, what’s the point of spending time designing your blog when so many users are switching over to RSS readers like Google Reader? Instead of seeing your intense graphics and smoothed out fonts, they’ll see whatever font their reader is set on. Your blog is supposed to be an extension of you, isn’t it? Aesthetics and all?
Having a good design is useful when you have a really popular post that’s making its rounds on the internet, on the front page of Digg or Reddit. Maybe it’s a video that you found on an old VHS tape that has “youtube phenomenon” written all over it, or it’s a really amazing post that has a long running conversation going on. It’s like working in a call center and wearing pajamas: no one knows about your attire until you do something remarkable and your customer surprises you at work with an award and a promotion.
I almost wish RSS didn’t exist sometimes. If a blog is a representation of the person writing it, I want to see that person in the way they wanted to display themself - not on a boring RSS reader.
