A reader mentioned that my RSS feed was not in order. I didn’t even know I had a site feed, but now I have become a dedicated RSS user, for my own site as well as for other people’s. I realize I’ve long been yearning for something like RSS. [Below is an example of Candy Minx’s blog as seen in my newsreader, click image to enlarge]
Some time back we debated the virtue of minimalist site design. What RSS lets readers do is to take the content out of your site and display it in a minimalist context. Every site has a different “look and feel” which the webmaster lovingly crafts. RSS let’s you bypass all of that and get the content in pure form.
Which means, you should read your own blog in an RSS news reader to see how it looks. I got some surprises.
As for the art of web design, site feed suggests that the minimalist approach is best. If readers can bypass your site’s style, then it makes sense to keep flourishes in web design to a minimum, and focus on the content itself.
Or do I have the conclusion backwards?
I have yet to experiment with RSS, so perhaps I should keep silent on this one. No doubt it is useful to have a minimalistic digest of various sites. I should give it a try.
However, as I’ve pointed out before, I do think its important for a site to maintain a distinct visual identity. (The fact that I’ve largely failed to do so on my own site is a function of my laziness and lack of web design experience, not an expression of my aesthetic ideals.) Such an identity can draw people to a site in the first place, and perhaps bring them back over and over again. It can also make the experience of reading richer and more enjoyable.
A memorable look can be either minimalist or maximalist. The big risk with the former is that your website will look generic (as mine does!). But by careful formal arrangement, this can be overcome. The big risk with the latter is that your site becomes ilegible or difficult to use. This can be overcome in a similar manner.
RSS let’s you bypass all of that and get the content in pure form.
Don’t you mean pure content?
Let’s put this into context. When I was following three or four blogs, I had no trouble visiting each of the sites to look for updates. But now I am trying to follow dozens of blogs. Every blog has a different style, and I get a bit dizzy. RSS lets me quickly scan the “pure content”, as you say, in a uniform format. The news reader updates the feed automatically, so scanning blogs this way is much faster than loading the blogs manually.
When I find something I want to read in depth and comment on, of course I visit the blog site itself.
As for “memorable look”, there are so many sites striving for this that it gets bland. Consider a novel. Each novel has a different cover, but it is nice that there is relatively little variation in the printing of the text itself (certainly compared to web sites). When I’m reading a novel, I usually tape a piece of white paper over the cover. The cover design is someone’s interpretation of the text, and usually I find this distracting. I had a copy of Old man and the sea with a ridiculous painting on the cover. I enjoyed the book much more once I covered this over.
But why would I want to read my own blog with RSS? When I see my own writing in a different context, in this case separate from my blog page, I see it almost as though it were written by someone else. This gives me a fresh look at the text.
Hi Karl,
This is very interesting. I don’t have a clue how to look at my site with RRs, I shall have to go look into this now! thanks for the heads up.
Hey, I am having ana rt opening, and you’re invited. Hope you can stop by for a glass of wine and a little visit. Bring some friends!
Here is the address:
http://gnosticminx.blogspot.com/2006/09/gallery-for-day.html
OH…I really really like this. I see now that I have a RRS button on my url.
It’s funny, I have only been blogging for a short time, and at first I loved all the glamourous blogs and lots of decoration. But often, I noticed, not much to read.
I was also rather embarrassed by my simple page for my blog…except I didn’t like any of the other templates offered by blogger…so I just made mine really simple. Because I have no clue how to write html…Before I started with blogger…I tried mac.com for two months and I made a really very pretty web design. I thought my blog was so boring…but I post a lot of photos. And I write a lot…so somehow I figured, it’s okay to have a plain blog…if someone perseveres, maybe they will grow to like my photos or my rambling thoughts ha ha ha !!!
anyhow, I am actually quite fond of my plain blog now…I didn’t feel too surprised at the RRS version EXCEPT the only thing that has always and still bugs me about my layout…is the narrow column for reading. I sometimes wish my paragraphs went across the whole page and the font was smaller.
Which is hilarious, because now that you’ve shown me what RRs looks like, that is what I wish my blog looked like all the time. I see now, that an anthropology blog I follow has his blog set to RRS all the time, because it looks just like that…
Thanks for taking the time to show me what this looks like…I enjoyed this post very much!
Oh, I will be using this for a lot of other blogs…um I forgot to say, aside from the massive amount of scrolling one has to do at my blog…I kind of like the “open spaces” better than format of read RRS.
I must go look at Arthurs now…
Oh okay, Arthur and I have almost the same template and design…we’re plain Janes eh Arthur, but I like it like that…we’ll wow em with our witty banter right?
Yeah!