MovableBlog: How to Make Me Read Your Weblog Part I
May 15, 2003
One of the best RSS feeds I subscribe to is Syndic8.com's recently approved feeds. Now, the signal-to-noise ratio isn't exactly high, but there are many an interesting weblog—and traditional site, for that matter—that have RSS feeds, and many of them go through a rigourous process of approval at Syndic8.com. Well, not so rigourous really: as long as your feed validates and the site is well-established, then the feed will probably get approved.
The main criteria for my wanting to even look at a weblog listed there is thus:
- Is the title of the weblog unique, clever, or have to do with what I'm interested in? Don't worry, I'm interested in a lot of things.
- Is there a description of the weblog? I skip the ones that don't even bother writing a sentence about their site (or, more accurately, weblogs that have descriptions listed at Syndic8.com). The description of the site is in the
titleattribute of the links in the page, so you have to mouseover to see it. Appropriately enough, the description is in thedescriptiontag of the RSS feed. - Is the site about something focussed? Many weblogs are 'random', 'ramblings' or 'whatever comes to mind'—or worse, 'random ramblings about whatever comes to mind'—and, while noting my hypocrisy in the matter, that's not very interesting. Even if your site is about the ins and outs of the car you recently bought, it's focussed and interesting. If you're passionate about something, and something specific, then that's often good enough.
This is first in a series of something that will probably be limited to two or three posts on what I look for in a weblog, but goodness knows there's enough "what makes a weblog great" posts out there. I just think that Syndic8's recently approved feeds list is underused, both by the content providers and consumers.