The whole reason for the Feedseeder Project is that current feed readers aren’t cutting it and I don’t see them set up to change. I’ve talked about this is a number of posts. In fact, I actually think the models behind NetNewsWire, NewsFire, Google Reader, (not to mention much less useful readers like PageFlakes, My Yahoo, and Google Homepage) are stagnant. And, as much as I of a Dave Winer fanboy as I am – the OPML and Userland Radio haven’t clicked with me either.
I’m actually thiiiiis close to ignoring the entire current crop of feed readers. Yes, I’m threatening to uninstall NetNewsWire, just so I can focus on a more appropriate model without being sucked into the current email-based models. As a colleague pointed out this afternoon, it’s even worse than email – at least in email, it’s easy to forward items. For me, feed reading, like podcasts are rarely about immediacy – much more about long term. Constantly gather everything I’m interested in….and make it easy to find relevant things over the long term. Something between the River of News and Google models. (It’s not a far jump to connect this thinking with my interest in hyperlocal journalism).
“Adding someone to your feed list is a relatively big decision.” – Chris Saad
I disagree with Chris here. Adding someone to my feed list is a very small decision. The actual question I ask is: ‘does this writer have the potential to provide me with something interesting?’
Since most of the new feeds I add are referrers from the people I already read, the answer is almost always: Yes.
Related:
Based on my customer research experience – this is how people shop. Signs are only read when there’s a problem with the organization of the products.
Update:
Over the weekend, I left NetNewsWire.
Listen to Dan Haugen on Northeast Beat and Hyperlocal Journalism