Site Design, Feeds and Missing Content
I’ve been thinking a lot about what gets lost in translation lately. More specifically blogs that get mangled by everyone’s feed readers. Lately I’ve been trying some old fashion net surfing.
A few thoughts:
- Most people I know have (with the exception of me I suppose) have put some thought and effort into their blog design. (see bk, or super clean and simple tyfo, or faves like dork mag, maud or design boom; even blazey pimped his tumblr.) It’s as if someone designed a magazine cover and the store ripped it off before they sold it.
- Lost Content: This infuriates me with the tumblr rss feed and I am currently trying to find a solution. If I post a song and you never go to my blog then you’ll likely never hear it (might not even know it’s missing in the first place). Quotes and dialog are cut short. Links are lost. SERIOUSLY!?! Come on tumblr? That brings me to my second point…
- Abbreviated reading: When I go to a blog I’m more likely to peep the content (especially when aided by a nice design) but once you get into the act of scanning your feeder it becomes just that, scanning. If you’re missing content from say…my tumblr, you’re less likely to care to go back to check it out within the context of the other 5,000 posts you also want to check out. Its not intentional it just happens. Even the information most people pick up, myself included, is done in a quick once over without giving much thought to the words. Which once again means that the design is lost and so is the content. Why bother blogging at all? (No wonder we’re all goldfish)
- Once you add a few blogs you have to add a few more. Completely inundating your reader, feeder and therefore yourself, with useless information.
- And the Final point. I love google, but their reader is just plain UGLY. Who seriously wants to sit around and stair at the nastiness for an hour or two?
Just make an effort to try and visit the sites of your favorite blogs. It’ll definitely make the world a better place and inflate everyone’s traffic. Think of it as doing your part to keep those damn designers on top of their game.
I’m curious to hear everyone else’s thoughts.
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