Monday, April 11, 2005

The Blogging Guru without an XML feed I've been spending a lot of time lately cancelling email newsletters and switching to RSS/Atom feeds. A friend of mine referred me to Hugh Hewitt's website to look for interesting blogs. I looked and looked (around 5 minutes, including a Google search of his site) and found zero mention of a feed except his confession that someone else complained that he doesn't have one (via BeliefSeekingUnderstanding Update: now moved to "Apprehension"): When, oh when, is Hugh going to get it about RSS feeds? There is no stinking way any person could read the number of blogs mentioned at the end of the book without one. Furthermore, he doesn't have a feed of his own, which is a total pain in the neck for his readers. I commend Hugh for being in front of the curve for getting the blogosphere, but it makes no sense that someone who gets the blogosphere doesn't get feeds and aggregators. (emphasis mine) Here's an excerpt from my email to Hugh: I took a brief look at your website after receiving a referral from a friend. Try as I might, I could not find an RSS or Atom feed anywhere. I did, however, find an ad for a book on blogging that *you* wrote. Why, oh why, if you are a blogging expert, can I not find an XML feed for your blog? I would like to learn more about what you have to say, but if I have to visit your site frequently, I'm not interested. That's not how I use the internet anymore. Here's the kicker: he wrote a book about blogging. The guy's a published author on the very subject in question, and he doesn't have a syndication feed. How do you think the blogosphere has taken off so much? I don't think 100% percent of the blogging and/or blog-consuming public sits around all day clicking through their favorite websites. No, they have their digital news delivered to their digital door using pull-based syndication technology. How could he miss that? If he didn't miss the RSS wave, then how could he underestimate its importance so much as to exclude it from his own blog? I'm not sure, despite the good reviews (and I'll even use his Amazon link so he gets commission), that he carries enough credibility (I'm sure the pundits/A-listers out there will disagree) for me to buy his book. His book is called Blog: Understanding the Information Reformation That's Changing Your World. But he doesn't understand. Not really.

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