« I fear RSS feeds do for blogs what online porn has done for sex. They render it clinical, full-frontal and far too easy to devour mindlessly in large amounts, like one big vat of gray blog entry paste people can choke down by the spoonful while making sure it bypasses the taste buds (and gag reflex) on the way down their intellectual gullet. And though I do appreciate that it’s better to be read via RSS feed than to not be read at all, I still hate it and find it mildly insulting. It’s like slaving to make a delicious full-course meal for someone, hand picking the vegetables yourself, fretting over the smallest details when presenting each morsel, and watching someone throw it all into a blender and suck it down with a straw. »
Nobody says it better than the great Babayaga.
I mostly share her opinion on RSS feeds but I’m still using them in order to be able to follow all the blogs I like to read. Once I see that my favorite blogs have been updated by their author, I still go visit them directly and I don’t refrain from adding comments.
Well see part of me is also glad you do use them. I once lost a very long (un-archived and irrecoverable) post to accidental deletion and saved it by quickly hopping to your RSS feed to rescue it. ;)
You were able to get it from my Bloglines link?
I think RSS’ strong points outweight the bad. Like you, I tend to simply use RSS news-readers to notify me of updates and then I visit the site, but an added advantage is it helps me bypass blogs that have great content but are badly designed.
Currently, my blog is still in its ugly phase and I can only hope that people read my « full frontal » RSS version instead of my fully clothed template.
I’ve really enjoyed your current design, Martine, and the one prior to this. Very clean and easy to read.
Yupper I think it was from your Bloglines link. Thankfully that thing doesn’t update very fast so I had time to ‘rescue’ a post from oblivion. Of course, at the rate that I delete things I regret writing, it means anyone casually reading me via Bloglines is only ever getting half the story. (lol) But, that’s probably a good thing. ;)