Explore - get the most out of the internet
Yesterday I was having a conversation about feed readers. I was discussing the way in which people use them, and I have come to an interesting conclusion. Using an RSS Reader could actually limit the exposure to what you get on the internet. Though it is nice having the internet come to you, being able to explore when you go to the internet is amazing as well.
Think about it; all you get is the content through the reader. You miss the design, the comments, the experience that the blog’s author intended to give you. When I am browsing the web I might come across an interesting story, look at the comments and see a great one, click on his website and be exposed to a whole archive of fresh, content.
I think this can be a common symptom of your average feed reader. One way I have tried to tackle this is by using my RSS Reader as simply a way of telling me when someone has published some new content. Sometimes I’ll read it within NetNewsWire, but quite often I’ll click through to read the article - I think it offers a better experience.
That said, I don’t over subscribe - I keep to a few select feeds that I feel allow me to cover a large variation of topics. If something catches my eye, or I’d be interested in seeing other people’s opinions I’ll jump through to the site.
My fear with RSS is that it will alienate the readers of the blog.
Thoughts?
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I have a pretty rigid way of reading RSS. I skim through all the headlines in NetNewsWire, and when I find one that interests me, I click the right arrow button, and it opens up in the Safari window behind NetNewsWire. I go through all the blog titles, loading up Safari with 30 or so new tabs each morning, then make my way through the tabs and read the posts.
IMO, posts were meant to read on the website. And that’s where I read them.
April 22nd, 2008 at 11:19 amI started to use rss reader after using NNTP news (newsgroups). I know that’s pretty…. ancient
Was nice at the time. I’ve currently on my macbook 3 rss applications (NetNewsWire, NewsFire, Vienna), primarily for testing which one is the best (for me). I’m still undecided.
But 3 years ago or so, I discovered Netvibes, wich is aggregating rss feeds on “your” page using even tab to order your feed. Honestly this is the best rss reader I’m using. I really like the way you can “own” the feed content, and use it at your will.
True is that desktop applications are missing design. They are here for the first purpose of the rss : showing content of site you subscribe… Nothing more. So yes, Netvibes is adding one more dimension : design.
I could use netvibes just for reading all news header, right, but when I find an interesting post, I’m right away opening the website to read the full article. Netvibes is mostly here to select quickly information I want to read from a selection (By the way your site is in
). And most feeds I have no content in, justtitle and a short abstract.
I’m still undecided to use an rss reader because Netvibes is the one. How ever, an offline reader can be use when offline (like in the train every morning and evening). So I’ll still keep one.
Do I loose some information ? Yes, of course.. And this is the goal of an RSS agregator…. But at the opposite, you get what you want. No it’s up to you to have feeds from a large variety of topics. It takes about 2 hours to read all the feeds I have on ma Netvibes pages…
June 3rd, 2008 at 11:18 am