Digital Common Sense

No links in here because I’m tired and lazy right now. I’ve thought a lot about Shelley’s comments about the blogroll hurting. I take them to heart really. But I also see lots of reasons to keep a blogroll. I think it’s even important to keep one.

The hard part is actively and proactively managing it. But I’m giving that a whirl. Now in the sidebar on the right you’ll see some different categories. No I’m not only spreading linky love to people I know and read, I’m pigeonholing and stereotyping them by attempting to force them into categories. For the moment the Affinity Group is the people I seem to have lots of interactions with. People I’ve developed online friendships with. Shared meaningful dialogue with. And the New Voices to me category represents just that. New people appearing on my radar. Sometimes brand new. Sometimes resurfacing. My plan is new discoveries will go there, but not stay there. Folks will either move to somewhere appropriate or the links will go away. I have to manage that.

But the whole blogroll chatter made me realize something that I really hate. Aggregators. Aggravators. RSS. I mean sure it’s convenient, but you know what? It sucks dirty pond water. Through a skinny straw.

Using and RSS reader, I don’t get to see peoples pretty web pages. That doesn’t bother me because if you look at mine you’ll see inelegant simplicity. All I care about from aesthetics is simplicity.

In RSS I don’t see your blogroll. You don’t see mine. And if you put up a link log, I promise I not only won’t subscribe, I’ll never even go look at it. If you don’t have something to say about those people, I’ll likely never find them.

And comments? Well I don’t find RSS very comment friendly either. Most people don’t push those out through RSS so I don’t see them. And if you write something I want to comment, well then I have to work. I have to click over to your site, wait for it to load up, and then try to remember what the heck I wanted to say? How conducive is that to stimulating conversation.

I guess one of the things all this has made me aware of, is I was more engaged in comment dialogue when I used my blogroll as my own bookmark list of the people I wanted to read. And when I could make it flag a place that had updated in the last 4 hours or so, I could focus on people who were saying things.

After months of using an RSS aggregator more, I maintain what I said in my disagreement with Scoble months and month ago. RSS turns readers from interactive engaged readers into baleen whales sucking down all the krill we can handle. I don’t like feeling that way.

By the way - That New to Me category is an invitation for you all to go read the new friends I’m discovering. - Troy and Elisa have become almost immediate daily reads for me. The others are moving that way too.

Filed by Ken at 7:57 pm under General