No doubt about it, blogging is having a huge effect on reading and writing. I intend to delve deeper into this particular aspect that RSS feeds impact how we are reading blogs, because it started bothering me the other day that I’m missing good entries by scanning the few lines or paragraphs (format chosen by weblog authors) and not reading the posts all the way through–it takes another click to do that (ohmigod!).
But for now, thanks to Jerz’s Literacy Log, the topic has been obviously brought up by others as well, so also please take the time and check out this article.
My thoughts are that while weblogs have changed our habits, RSS is going to add its own little twist to the scenario, and may even undo some of the good that weblogging has brought to the internet community.
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology
I think you might be right…the feeds promise a larger audience, but some of the formatting issues, such as the partial front page blurbs, etc., might be counterproductive. 🙁
From experience (I found out that a blog subscription service I put into limited use only sends out the first post made that day), I don’t quite trust teh feed system. So I use Bloglines just to indicate, for the most part, which blogs I frequent have been updated. Then I go directly to the blog from the Bloglines link. I also check everything once a week.
Joe, that’s exactly the habit I’ve trained myself to adjust to now. There was just too much I was missing–such as Cindy’s letter regarding publishing her book, because it wasn’t clear in the opening lines of the excerpt of the post. And once or twice a week, I also go through the whole list of links directly from the Spinning website. But I’m also trying to remember to include that “hook”, or the main point of the post in the first few sentences of any of my own entries so it has indeed affected my writing–hopefully for the better! It’s fun to explore and learn, through the new ways, how important the old traditional elements of writing come into play!