I may not be a luddite, but there’s no denying disassociated.com is pretty lo-tech. There’s a definite lack of gidgets and widgets, twitter chat boxes, and whatever other uber cool web apps, going on around here.
Deciding to migrate disassociated.com to the Wordpress blogging platform (how do you like my IT speak?) was like a “giant leap”, after almost ten years of using static XHTML templates for the various websites and blogs I have had over that time.
And I’ve still not totally taken to some of the more common technologies such as RSS, which may seem like a bit of a puzzle.
Sure all my websites have RSS feeds of some sort, thanks mostly to the ease of setup services such as Feedburner offer, but I don’t really spend much time reading, or looking at RSS feeds.
I still prefer to find out what’s happening the old skool way.
This equates to scanning through the sites and blogs on my links page (which really needs an update itself!) looking for updates and new posts, or visiting the blogs of those who leave comments here, or show up on my referrer stats.
Yes, I’m sure to be missing out on something, but then I doubt there’s one sure way to stay on top of every last blog update!
Another way I keep my “finger on the pulse” of the blogosphere is to make use of the Technorati favourites (yup, I spell it with a u!) facility. While I know RSS readers do something similar, I like the way Technorati displays a short excerpt, or preview of a recently updated blog.
I’ve been progressively going through Technorati and “favouriting” blogs that I want to keep an eye on.
It makes sense since a) I’m using Technorati all the time, b) any blog I read will most likely already be there (claimed), and c) it saves the “hassle” of having to fire up another program (a RSS reader in this case), and go “resubscribing” to the blogs I already have tagged in Technorati.
And if you are one of my favourites I’m sure you’ll get a kick of being “favourited” by someone else… unless you’re a numbers person who wants to see their RSS readership numbers boosted… ok then, sorry, I can’t help you there…
Hahahah you and me both. I use Technorati as my low-tech feedreader :) I am all about getting RSS subscribers but still don’t use RSS myself except as a ‘favor’ to boost the rankings on blogs I like (Google supposedly smiles on that)
I’m as guilty as you are about RSS feed. Even though I promote RSS subscription of my blog, I do not have the habit of grabbing feed of blogs I read daily.
Instead, I saved the url to my “Favourites” list and blog surf from there. Alternatively I also use Technorati to check on new blog posts.
@ Kurt - Google likes it? No wonder everyone has RSS subscriber drives! :)
@BetShop - while I know having feeds update “live” in your RSS reader must be convenient, I guess it still comes down to personal preference as to how we’d like to keep up with updates on blogs we like to read. Like you I also keep sites bookmarked, or as favourites :)