I've been playing around with Google Reader a bit more. One thing that is pseudo-neat is the sharing feature. If you read a post you'd like to share, you click the 'share' button below the post (surprise surprise). All posts that are marked to be shared are posted on a publicly viewable web page. Currently you have no way of customizing the resulting page. I think people can also subscribe to the feed from this page.
Two discussion points for me I guess:
1. The complete post is readable right on that page (provided the original source feed provided a complete version). The post name and site name are linked right there. But why not provide the original feed address or an RSS chicklet to allow readers to subscribe to that blog feed in their own aggregator if they find they like what they see? This would provide a much expanded means of new sparsely-read bloggers to be discovered based on the merits of their post.
2. Does this subvert posts like Kent Newsome's "Morning Reading" posts (which I quite like) ? He could more easily provide the posts of note, (heck I wouldn't even have to go to their blogs to read them), but without the much needed context. I like Kent's posts because he is filtering things for me and provides some narration. He doesn't just list a series of links. He's adding value to my blog reading. I choose to go or not go to the posts based on how he describes them. This is worthwhile to me.
So I'm unsure whether the Google Reader Share page feature is a useful or useless thing. Whether it could easily be made useful if it's not already. And whether or not something like this is really a good thing for fostering growth in the blogosphere. Any opinions?
Here's a link to my Google Reader share page. I've just thrown up a few posts as an example. Take a look and give your opinions.
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1 comments:
Since reading this post and viewing your example of a "Google Reader's Shared Page" I've been considering if I would find this useful or not. I've finally decided "NOT" for the following reason.
It doesn’t fit my habits. I've developed a habit of skimming and selectively reading those posts that catch my eye. Good or bad, this is the method that I've found most effective for covering a wide range of Blogs and interest. Sometimes I selectively read items simply because the title grabbed my attention. I use "NetNewsWire" as my main feed reader. With this application (Mac), I've separated Blogs into categories and have created a number of "watches" which flag to my attention any posts that contain certain keywords that I'm currently interested in.
I'm seldom interested in every item that someone else is and so a page of shared complete posts could make scanning more difficult. Besides if I'm reading Richard Querin it's because I want to know what Richard thinks about the subject Richard is writing about. If you want to link to other information that’s related to your post, that's great! I may or may not care to read them but I appreciated the links. Also, when something is referenced I like to go to the source to read the complete post.
I hope some of this made sense?
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