BuzzMachine has a link to a recent WSJ article (and they made it a free/non-registration link!) regarding syndication of blog feeds. Many of you already know I am a huge RSS fan. For those of you who haven't dipped your toes in the water of reading your daily blogs this way, the article is a quick overview - very quick, just glosses the surface.
Though it doesn't go in depth, and the author is a bit behind the times (he calls newsreaders "a relatively new phenomenon"), I think it will pique some people's interest and get them to give it a try.
He has a few suggestions for aggregators - mostly applications requiring purchase or subscription. He does mention Bloglines, which is free and web based, making it ideal if you use multiple computers during the week.
I use SharpReader, which I love and it is free, but it does have a few 'features' that might not make it the best choice for you. It requires you to be running .NET on your system, which can be a bit of a pain but worth the trade off to me because I really like SharpReader. Also, I use it both at home and at work. Because it, and the data, reside on the computer, things I have read in one location show as new in the other. That problem is avoided with a system like Bloglines where the data is stored online. I find it to be only a minor inconvenience, however, when I factor in the ease of using the SharpReader interface.
I tried a couple of systems that deliver the feed as email - and hated them. One of the things I like about RSS is not needing to get email alerts and such ~ which explains why I think the RSS feed to track FedEx packages is better than their email alerts. I have enough crap in my inbox that I can't control - I love having my aggregator set up just the way I want it. I love pulling the information in, rather than them pushing it out.
But that is just my opinion...
Posted by Vox at July 8, 2004 02:46 PM | blogsI too love RSS feeds. I use bloglines and it's such a nice way to keep up with all sorts of things. It's getting so that if a site doesn't have a feed, I pretty much don't go to it.
Posted by: ladygoat at July 8, 2004 08:18 PMI sent you an email about your message.
Posted by: Lori at July 9, 2004 12:52 AMI agree. I find that I sometime forget to go to the sites not listed in my aggregator - I like the convenience of knowing when and if a site has been updated.
I have gotten so spoiled by the long feed, though, that I sometimes don't even click through to see the whole post in those that only provide an excerpt. Maybe I'm just too lazy but it has to be a damn good headline or excerpt to get me to go that extra step. There are a few exceptions among my daily reads - those that I just use the reader as a flag that there is a new post - but I would prefer to not have to make the extra click for them, either.
Posted by: Vox at July 9, 2004 12:59 AM