Wriging Thread: Multiple Feeds for Blogs, or just One?

Multiple Feeds for Blogs, or just One?

d43 — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 13:20:25

Thanx :)

Yeah, I think we often pay too much attention to the "theme" categories (whereas we generally follow more a person in a blog than a strictly precise theme) and not enough to the structural form of the website. It really can obstruct the inspiration like you said it.

But damn, it's very hard to change our idea of the traditional blog system wich is so omnipresent today (and I often regret the freedom, the personality and the creativity of "ancient personal websites"...).

This is what motivates me in my projects!

Multiple Feeds for Blogs, or just One?

hthth — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 20:15:21

@chapstick
But in the end, the only two feeds that my users subscribe to are my recent articles feed, and my recent comments feed.

Thanks for sharing that. It's too bad it isn't popular, it's a nice setup you have there!

@d43
I don't know if it requires a presentation in Notes as I'm a little bit shy (and a damn french with poor english) and don't know well the rules of this excellent community...

Don't worry about it. We've had several 'Hello I'm New Notes', even a perpetual hello note for everybody to post in. But that's entirely optional. I don't think I ever did that, people eventually get to know/notice you just like happened here and friendships usually evolve quite naturally from that.

Your categorization is great, that is, the goal of the categorization is great. I often find myself not posting simply because I think it won't age well, I don't have enough time to add my own flavor to it (ie. interesting bookmarks), etc. I had a del.icio.us feed on site at some point, but it never caught on, with me nor my readers. Anyway, interesting to see how you approach it.

Multiple Feeds for Blogs, or just One?

d43 — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 13:36:28

Hey hthth, thanx for the welcome! Yes I'm new to the 9rules community, even if I follow Scrivs since his early Whitespace =)
I don't know if it requires a presentation in Notes as I'm a little bit shy (and a damn french with poor english) and don't know well the rules of this excellent community...

Nevermind. About my categorization, I look for a better/perfect way to publish on personal websites for years and in fact, I try to create websites as a reflection of mind on the web. After spending too much time in developing "social" web apps, I finally finished the first release of a tool to help people in managing their mind on the web and sharing / publishing contents.

So I sliced the traditional unique publishing system of blogs in 3 parts:
- Bookmarks / Favorites: ok it's pretty clear here, by category
- "Shredlog": quick notes, pictures, links, videos, like a tumblelog (or like a Pensive in Harry Potter ;) )
- Publications: real pages (articles, creations...) by project (wich you can attach some "shreds" to)
(I have added too some tools to communicate, manage friends, tasks etc.)

The publishing system allows to separate our best work (to keep it permanently by project) from the rest of the contents that usually tends to pass away in time. It's like a cure for the blog system wich kill your best thoughts, as an omnidirectional, uniform and expiring flow.

I hope it's a bit clearer. You can leave me a message if you want more informations on this and keep your Note close to the original subject ;)

Multiple Feeds for Blogs, or just One?

chapstick — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 04:28:40

It's really not worth the effort. I created a script that allowed my users to create their own rss feed from my site (check it out).

But in the end, the only two feeds that my users subscribe to are my recent articles feed, and my recent comments feed. All the other feeds are ignored. And (like the people above stated), it's probably just because the site isn't that big with lots of different content in different places. So the standard rss feeds are fine by themselves.

Multiple Feeds for Blogs, or just One?

hthth — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 01:48:01

I'm intrigued by d43's (you're new around here, right? Welcome!) categorization. But you guys are making great points. Sounds like not being worth the effort unless there is very diverse content. And, like Tyme points out, the featured articles would we stored in a category which have a feed anyway. So the option is there if someone asks. Thanks for the help!

Edit:

@Josh
I think making multiple feeds available would just make more work / confusion for readers. Someone who's interested in your featured articles on A.I. will most likely be just as interested in the silly (but cool) video of the dress disappearing into a hat.

You made me laugh out loud! Good to hear, though. One of things that sparked my idea to make more of distinction btw. featured/rest is because I was wondering about relevancy of, for example, mechanic dresses ;) Helps get perspective to hear someone else's views.

Multiple Feeds for Blogs, or just One?

Tyme — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 00:47:24

Well, my first thought is that the geeky people who would be interested in separate feeds already know you already have it and might have already subscribed to the topics that interest them (if they want to zero in on something specific). As said earlier your blog is pretty constant so you shouldn't have that problem.

The only time when I've seen the multiple feeds come in handy is with diverse topics and weeding personal/professional entries.

Multiple Feeds for Blogs, or just One?

d43 — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 21:13:19

I think different feeds can be interesting if the website is very large, with a big diversity in the categories or if more than five posts per day are published.

I don't think it's useful in your case, as Think Artificial does not risk to "spam" the feed readers with too much contents.

Or you may consider slicing your publications in two or three categories like "Articles", "Bookmarks" and "Notes", as I do on my websites... it could be more clear and so you could make the appropriate feeds...

Multiple Feeds for Blogs, or just One?

Josh — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 21:13:19

I agree with Shadowsun. I typically either subscribe to the full feed, or nothing at all. I've never paid much attention to the split feeds, because if I like the site as a whole, I want all of the posts, even if they are on different topics, are of different lengths, etc.

As Shadowsun said, as your blog is fairly consistent in regards to topic, I think making multiple feeds available would just make more work / confusion for readers. Someone who's interested in your featured articles on A.I. will most likely be just as interested in the silly (but cool) video of the dress disappearing into a hat. Now, if you were to start dropping in posts on knitting or cooking, then I'd say a separate feed would be warranted.

Multiple Feeds for Blogs, or just One?

shadowsun7 — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 21:01:29

I would say it doesn't really make much of a difference: your blog has a high standard of quality that runs throughout most of your posts, and they're on a niche topic. And we're reading and subscribing partly because we 'know' and like you. So, speaking for myself, I'd want the whole thing; the whole package ... everything you write.

Multiple Feeds for Blogs, or just One?

hthth — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 20:49:09

Thanks for the input Eli. Yeah, I tend to just subscribe to the full feeds as well; at least to begin with. I've subscribed to a particular section of a site if the articles are very diverse/site is very big. But I'm still unsure if it'd really make a difference on a small blogs like mine where the overall theme is somewhat consistent.

Multiple Feeds for Blogs, or just One?

shadowsun7 — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 20:42:11

No, not really. When I subscribe to a feed I subscribe to the whole thing - asides, features, warts and all. But then again I'm geeky like that. I'll be happy if you provide the full feed, though.

Multiple Feeds for Blogs, or just One?

hthth — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 20:26:26

I'm pondering the benefits of multiple feeds for a blog. In my particular case, I'm planning a site overhaul and intend to break my blog up into featured articles on one hand, and then everything else.

Featured articles would be articles that I consider top quality (often longer than others). And everything else would be shorter/less groundbreaking posts.

The question is, do I maintain two separate feeds for this, where users can either subscribe to featured articles only, or a full feed? Or maintain a single feed like I have in the past?

To give respect where it's due; I was considering this option when I saw BinaryJoy's great implementation, which pretty much convinced me to give it serious consideration.

Do you do this on your blog, or appreciate options like this on blogs that do?