Feed Reader

I’m a visu­al per­son. Personally, I’d rather peo­ple vis­it my site instead of adding my feed to an aggre­ga­tor. It’s a sad fact that the num­ber of sub­scribers to my feed near­ly dou­bles my dai­ly vis­i­tors. The look of my site is a reflec­tion of my cur­rent per­son­al­i­ty and mind­set, and even though it has­n’t changed in a while, it’s still rel­e­vant. I’ve held off using a feed read­er for as a long as pos­si­ble, because I believe that a site’s look is as impor­tant as the infor­ma­tion that it con­veys.

But my blogroll keeps grow­ing, and I’ve reluc­tant­ly turned to using an aggre­ga­tor to keep track of the sites I read on a dai­ly basis. It’s a lot more effi­cient, but cold, and bor­ing, and I feel like I’m miss­ing out on some­thing the writer is try­ing to say.

10 comments

  1. I use Vienna on OS X and Google Reader every­where else.

  2. I could­n’t agree more. The pre­sen­ta­tion of the writ­ing is part of the expe­ri­ence. I very sel­dom read posts in Google Reader–instead I just use it to keep me updat­ed and use the key­board short­cut ‘V’ to open up the orig­i­nal post in a new tab.

  3. I always read posts through Google Reader. If I feel like com­ment­ing, then I’ll vis­it the site. I have no prob­lem peo­ple vis­it­ing my site through a news feed.

  4. But some peo­ple have hor­ren­dous­ly ugly sites that look like a 14 year old’s myspace but some­how make good posts. I don’t want to sub­ject my eyes to epilep­sy induc­ing glit­ter ani­ma­tion!!!!

  5. I would also like to vis­it blogs instead of read­ing via a fee­dread­er, but I guess we have to give and take some­times. With only so much time to blog-hop in a day, I choose to read in a fee­dread­er.

  6. @trolley — I use Google Reader; I admit that one of the advan­tages is that my blogroll fol­lows me every­where.

    @Oktober Five — Ah, I should use Google Reader to keep track of updates as well, and use that short­cut to vis­it instead. Even though it makes a lot of sense, it still seems like an extra step.

    @J. — One of the dis­ad­van­tages of read­ers is that I can’t read oth­er peo­ple’s com­ments first, which often add some­thing to the con­ver­sa­tion. I’d rather not add a feed just for com­ments.

    @Tiana — Really? I don’t come across ter­ri­ble designs any­more, not from peo­ple I’m inter­est­ed in, at least. The designs I don’t care for aren’t hor­ri­bly offen­sive, just bor­ing, slop­py, or bad­ly cod­ed.

    @pelf — I also have to admit that there are sites I would nev­er read on a dai­ly basis if it was­n’t for a feed read­er. They’re right on the cusp of being inter­est­ing enough to vis­it reg­u­lar­ly.

  7. I love your site- I think from the moment I sat down, I read so many of your entries, which were real­ly beau­ti­ful.

    The thought of read­ing words to a lover in a cold morn­ing.

  8. ::Raises guilty hand:: –One of the ones with hor­ren­dous­ly ugly sites that look like a 14 year old’s myspace but some­how make good posts. (we hope.)

  9. P.S. just read your wee update: “Left the win­dow open overnight and my humid­i­ty meter is point­ing way over to the humid side. Must have rained.”

    (Sometimes I envi­sion you in a tiny round space­craft with one round bub­ble hatch win­dow, rotat­ing ever so slight­ly around in a waft­ing orbit, all by your­self, float­ing out over the cos­mos, com­ment­ing, Hm, Humid today… )

  10. I have to dis­agree, your page is noth­ing close to offen­sive.

    And that image of me in a clas­sic round space­ship is hilar­i­ous. For some rea­son, I pic­ture myself hold­ing a cup of cof­fee while say­ing this. And I don’t even drink cof­fee.

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