RSS, Generated Code and Newsreaders
August 08, 2003 18 | Comments (Closed)
I just got through reading Kottke’s Refined RSS Feeds and the related comments and after my brain stopped hurting, it got me to thinking.
First - RSS. I don’t really care much how RSS works, and whether or not it’s human readable. I guess that would be preferable, but really, I just want to know that it works and that I can syndicate my site to folks with newsreaders. The rest I’ll leave to people smarter than I to sort out / fight over.
Second - Generated Code. I find it strange that with Web standard development gaining more and more acceptance that I don’t worry too much about the code Movable Type generates. I’m pretty sure it all validates and all that, but I’ve never really looked at it. I spend lots of time working on valid templates for my projects and then, with the exception of MT, I go to great length to make sure the content that goes into those templates is coded correctly. I’ve got my fingers crossed that my MT code will stand the test of time.
Third - Newsreaders. I have a newsreader, but I rarely use it. I much prefer to read people’s sites via the browser where I can take in the site as a whole. I’m in the process of doing a redesign, and I’m working hard on my content markup and presentation (a sneak peak) at the moment, so I realize that aspect is very important. But one of the other reasons I’m redesigning is to optimize the template, the “extra” content and elements around my main blog entries. Things a newsreader won’t pick up.
So I’m curious, are you reading this from my site, or from a newsreader? What is your preferred format for reading blogs? What are your feelings on this stuff?
Filed under: Web General
Comments
1. Nick Finck said:
I have several newsreaders installed on my system… I even beta and alpha test newsreaders… but you know, I really never liked reading content with them. I donno, maybe I just feel awkward in the UI so removed from the Web… or maybe I just don’t want to have to load an whole new piece of software while I have my other 20 applications loaded to do web development, design, email, and FTP… there’s simply not enough resources here to load more applications. So ya, I read your site via a browser like I read every site. I think this goes back to understanding how users really use the web… not so much how we “think” they use the web. I believe we will see a lot of web-based RSS readers being developed over the next few months. I don’t know if they will work any better than their software counterparts, we’ll see.
Posted on August 8, 2003 10:26 AM | #
2. Craig said:
I tried the NewsMonster news reader for Mozilla, but reading the content on RSS feeds made the experience feel, ironically, disconnected. I much prefer going to the actual Web site, relying on random checks or blo.gs to find out if a site has been updated, and reading the content there. Maybe I’m just old school…
Posted on August 8, 2003 10:31 AM | #
3. derek said:
I use a newsreader, but only to read short posts. If it is anything long, or that contains pictures, or has a lot of links, I’ll open it up in the browser. Another thing I don’t like about the particular newsreader I use is that it uses IE to render pages, but my browser of choice is Opera. So I have to put up with all the pop-ups and security holes if I look at stuff in the newsreader.
Plus I always read your site in the browser so I can listen to music while I read. :)
Posted on August 8, 2003 10:32 AM | #
4. lincoln said:
I go to the site itself. A bit time consuming but its like visiting people’s homes and not just reading about them in the newspaper. Without going to the site you miss out on a few things. If you go around, you have the experience of the site and the content. I use the internet for both information and entertainment and I think a newsreader is just providing content, and lacking in all the good stuff that people often spend time on in order to retain the visitors attention. For example, Derek’s post above me just lead me to his page where I am now taking in a fine peice of ass. Uh, thank’s derek!
Posted on August 8, 2003 10:52 AM | #
5. zlog said:
I’m reading through Feed On Feeds, a php-server-side-aggregator. I read short posts in the aggregator and long posts at the site (so the aggregator sort of notifies me there is a new post).
Posted on August 8, 2003 10:52 AM | #
6. Arikawa said:
I’m viewing this through my browser, although I was alerted to your post by NetNewsWire.
I rather like the idea of a newsfeed as an alert function, and the feed for my own site operates this way.
NetNewsWire sits in my dock and displays a growing number as more subscribed feeds are updated. When I have the time, I check out what I like and use the newsreader links to open my browser.
Before I did this, I had to visit my bookmarks each day. While this was OK (and amazingly sweet to see Safari open a whole folder of bookmarks in separate tabs all at once), I always felt a bit disappointed when there was nothing new to see. (Plus I frequently refreshed these pages throughout the day to see if there was something new). At least a newsreader has prevented me from having to do this.
I would agree though that reading an entire post within a newsreader is not what I consider enjoyable. It’s OK for news-oriented sites that I subscribe to, wired, nytimes, etc. But for anything design-related, I’m sure to open the browser.
Lastly, I find the technology, whatever it is, that generates RSS feeds (or perhaps its the reader) unpredictable. Sometimes my reader will show a site has updated all of its entries when it has not. You know what I mean, there are 15 entries in a feed, and suddenly the feed is updated (or not) somehow and they are all marked as new. This is annoying… and shouldn’t happen. Most definitely not the site author’s fault though (in case this happens to my feed in the future?) :-)
Posted on August 8, 2003 10:55 AM | #
7. Wayne Burkett said:
I visit your site (and all my favorites) via blo.gs. It seems to me the biggest benefit to using an aggregator is knowing when blogs have updated, something blo.gs makes possible, anyway. Aggregators sound great for tracking new books at Amazon, or viewing Technorati watchlists, but I’ve never been comfortable using them to read blog entries.
Posted on August 8, 2003 11:00 AM | #
8. Boyink said:
NewsGator here, between RSS subscriptions, traditional email newsletters, and email, it just works for me to get it all one place, MSOutlook in this case. I can blow away the uninteresting posts, and follow links to the interesting ones.
Now if I could just stop myself from hitting “reply” to a RSS item and wondering why the author never answers back….;)
Posted on August 8, 2003 11:19 AM | #
9. Bob said:
I’ve tried a couple newsreaders, but found that I missed viewing the site itself. I have my bookmarks at the ready in my Mozilla sidebar, and so it’s nothing to click through the list and read all my bookmarked blog sites in about half an hour.
Posted on August 8, 2003 11:25 AM | #
10. jimmedee000 said:
I much prefer reading blogs on a site. Being a web developer, I get the added pleasure of seeing lots of good site design work.
Posted on August 8, 2003 11:34 AM | #
11. caiuschen said:
I use a blo.gs powered blogroll on my own blog to check when people’s blogs have been updated. I, too, enjoy taking in a blog as a whole and checking out site design. I also enjoy your SOW, heh.
Posted on August 8, 2003 11:52 AM | #
12. Dave S. said:
I just grabbed the beta of FeedDemon — so far I’m digging it way more than I liked AmphetaDesk, which was the best of the bunch prior.
Generally the value of an aggregator is the update notification - then I’ll hop to the site to read the entry in full.
Posted on August 8, 2003 12:04 PM | #
13. Keith said:
Well, I’m glad to hear lots of people actually visit my site. Makes all the effort I’m putting into the redesign worth it. Not that I really expected any different.
I kind of like the blogroll idea, not sure if I want that here, but having a place to check for updates is more along the lines of what I’d use a newsreader for.
Posted on August 8, 2003 12:27 PM | #
14. Todd said:
I’m using Newzcrawler to grab the headlines to alert me, but more often than not most people don’t setup their MT to do any further than 50 characters, so I have to view the website. I’m viewing your website within newzcrawler (which I’m guessing uses IE for a rendering engine).
Posted on August 8, 2003 03:02 PM | #
15. Tony said:
Lately I’ve been experimenting with the various news readers, as I do very much like the idea of viewing weblogs in a more managed, structured way and also prefer visiting when I know there is something new to see. At the same time, as has been mentioned, there is a definite sense of disconnection, particularly if you choose to read posts in the news reader application itself - even more so if this results in a plain text only version. Part of the experience, in my view, when visiting an individual’s weblog is taking in the whole site design and layout and this can often reveal as much about the person as the actual content. Of course, for news only sites this is far less of an issue and here news readers do excel.
Recently I have been experimenting with the Blog Change Bot which is a nice half way house as it updated you via an instant message after a weblog has updated. It is slightly annoying in the fact that it, by definition, updates you ‘as and when’, but there are, of course, ways of keeping it quiet when you are busy. An additional setting to update you hourly, or at certain times would be a welcome feature.
Posted on August 11, 2003 08:24 AM | #
16. Sunny said:
I have been using the FeedDemon beta lately. But I just use it for alerts. If an ‘alert’ feature can be added to Mozilla/Firebird (extension?), it will be really neat. There is something abt visiting a webpage. Its not just reading; its an experience.
But for traditional publications (NY Times, Guardian etc) and sources (Slashdot, Wired etc), news readers are quite effective and thats how I use mine.
Posted on August 11, 2003 11:28 AM | #
17. Sam Newman said:
Also viewing this using FeedDemon. I use FeedDemon to show me whats new, and give me an outline of the post (often I cannot read the entire piece with FeedDemon anyway as the RSS is only giving excerpts rather than full posts). If I like what I see, I will then view the whole site within FeedDemon itself - this is also what I’d do to post comments. The embedded browser is IE though :-/
As for Alerts within Mozilla/Firebird, thats what NewsMonster is supposed to do isn’t it? I heard enough bad things about it not to try it - FeedDemon is fine for me, and assuming its not too expensive when finally released I’ll probably buy it too.
Posted on August 12, 2003 01:41 AM | #
18. Mike Steinbaugh said:
I use a newsreader to check and see if the weblogs I read have new posts and what the posts are about. If the post sounds interesting, I click on it and read it from the web site. I too like seeing the site in its entirely but the newsreader is great because you don’t have to go checking each site individually to see if there is fresh content.
Posted on September 4, 2003 08:40 PM | #
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