This is my 383rd post (my 321st if you don’t count my mini-blog in the sidebar). As you are no doubt aware, these two numbers are both highly significant. 383 is the house number of the small condo in Washington DC in which Al Gore, the inventor of the internet, was born. And, as we all know, 321 is the atomic number of the element blogranium.
In order to commemorate these two numbers I am dedicating this post to blogging about blogging.
Google Reader
Like many people I’ve recently switched to using Google Reader to aggregate my blog reading for me. This has meant that I’m able to zero in on who’s updated recently and cut down my trawling around time by about 90%; allowing me the time to add a fair few new blogs to my reading list.
There are, however, a few problems I see with Google reader.
I can get a little obsessed with my blog’s statcounter. I’m not saying that I sit in front of it pressing the refresh button every thirty seconds, but sometimes I sit in front of it pressing the refresh button every thirty seconds. I haven’t got a problem though, I could quit whenever I want.
When people read the blog using Google reader, or when I read other people’s blogs, the reader is like silent ninja, stealthily sneaking through the web using their ninja guile and cunning to pass undetected. The only time they reveal themselves is when they uncloak and err… throw a comment shrunken. Ok, so it’s a bad metaphor, but you know what I mean. You can actually tell how many subscribers you have using Google Reader, but the process is rather arduous, at least using my ISP it is, and quite frankly I can’t be arsed.
The other thing that concerns me about Google Reader is that the whole process of commenting becomes very one directional. There have been a couple of occasions on this blog in the past when there has been some really entertaining banter going on in the comments section (a good example is the claim to fame contest). With Google you don’t have the opportunity to see if anyone else has commented on a post, and so there is a risk any sense of community will be lost.
I still use the service though, it’s just too convenient not to. But these worries do niggle me.
Any oppinions?
Sell out?
I’ve never been tempted to pay-per-post or have advertising on the site. I’ve nothing against people who do, but it’s never really appealed to me.
Today I got a letter from the publisher of a book called Dadditude offering to send me a free copy of the book in return for a review. I expect a few of you may have got the same email too. I checked out the website and read the extracts and to be honest I quite fancy accepting their offer. There is just something cool about being sent a review copy that makes me feel like a hack journalist, which as we all know is every young boy’s dream.
I think I’ll accept the offer, providing the publishers will post it to England that is. Anyway you never know, if I do a good job on this review someone may send me a car to critique next.
I just discovered the reader, but when it comes up that someone has posted I just click on the name and read it. Myself and Whit talked the other day about how it is better to see the post in the content of the whole blog. I think. I had been drinking. But I do it so that the person knows I have been there, and that the FBI will soon follow :)
I’d go crazy without my Reader. When I comment somewhere, I try to remember that I made that comment and then I’ll specifically go back to that blog to see if anyone commented on my comment. Oh, too late, I may have already gone crazy.
All I can think of is to subscribe to the comments feed. Which is actually rather entertaining given that you get all comments for all posts in one rather interesting stream. Just a thought…
i believe if one leaves comments on other people’s blogs, they are more likely to get hits on theirs…ehem.
One of the options with Google Reader was to put a next button in your toolbar, which I did. So instead of seeing feeds I just hit that button and it takes me to each blog in my subscriptions that has a new post.
You see, I’m still saving tons of time, but I’m also making a legit visit to the page, so I can stand up and be counted.
I think this is how Al would want it.
Thank you Al. Hhhyeah.
That toolbar next button is pure genius. It’s existence solves all my previous concerns and has made this post irrelevant and defunct.
Thanks a lot Whit, way to go showing me up on my own blog. thanks for exposing my complete ignorance.
Swine.
Lookit that, I learnt something today. I’ve put the “next” button on my bookmarks now and will try that too.
I’m still waiting for the plug-in that connects new blog posts directly to my cerebral cortex. I hear Google has a prototype.
Love Google reader. I couldn’t live without it.
And heck yeah, take the freebies. I have honestly started using four of the prodcuts I reviewed. Plus I’ve made a ton of money in advertising. (OK, maybe not a ton, but more than nothing.)
I use Google Reader and I’ve had the same nightmares, I mean concerns. And I never knew about the next button either. It’s mind boggling how much Whit has to teach us. But how do we make everyone use it? Or is reading each other’s blogs the only traffic most of us get anyway?