How many of you have a feed reader full of unread blog articles? Yeah, so do I; currently, my unread count stands at 163 items, mostly in WoW blogs. And that’s after reading almost all the stuff I really want (or “need”) to read today!
Many people who are faced with this onslaught of bloggination simply ignore it, and eventually “mark all as read.” Others tell me, “Kes, I really love your blog, but I only check my reader a couple times a week.” Or they don’t subscribe at all, and often don’t get around to clicking their bookmark to the Aerie.
Well, I have some Good News! There’s a single, simple solution to all these issues, and it isn’t a new one, either. All you need to do is subscribe via email! Then, each time I update my blog, you’ll get an email with the latest article. And who ignores email? Especially if you take a moment to set up a filter so your blog subscriptions (true statement: other blogs besides mine have email subscriptions!) go someplace you are sure to read each day.
If you don’t believe me about how easy it is, ask Bre! (You can ask her here, too, or simply tweet @Bre_0.)
Now, you could click that little envelope icon on the navigation menu, but I’m going to make it even easier: CLICK HERE! See? Wasn’t that simple? Now you have no excuse for being up-to-date with what’s going on in Birdland.
Join 784 eclectic readers.
Join the flock: Now 393 strong!
Tami (29)
Badger (10)
Bre (8)
Softi (8)
krizzlybear (6)
Jov (5)
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
But the reason I use a reader is to keep all of my blog subscriptions in one place. Sure, not all of them get read all of the time, but moving some to my already overloaded inbox certainly won’t help anything. If I don’t have time to read something when I sit down to read blogs, how am I going to have time to read it when I sit down to do a completely different task, processing email?
Not that I don’t read your blog, I’m just coming out against email subscriptions.
TJ´s latest blog post is Are you a Blocker or a Non-Blocker?
I don’t have any email subscriptions either, but it’s an option for those who, for whatever reason(s), can’t or don’t or won’t keep up with a feed reader.
It doesn’t work for everyone, but I spoke with two friends today who thought the idea of subscribing by mail would work for them. Now, since I can prove anything with a sample of one (and here I had 2 out of 2!), I projected that 100 percent of those who don’t read my blog in a reader, would be excited about an email subscription.
As an aside, lots of major-league bloggers use email subscriptions as a value-added proposition to enhance their content. Obviously, I’m not in that league by any stretch, but it’s certainly something that has the potential to be leveraged in the future.
I agree with TJ – this is sort of nonsensical to me. If people are having trouble keeping up with all their subscriptions then they should reduce them, not find another place to put them before marking as read.
I can see it working for certain content types, but nothing in my wow blog list. Nothing against it being offered, of course, and it’s nice to open that aspect up, but I can’t help but think it’s not really ‘fixing’ any problems, just moving them about.
/hug
Aurik´s latest blog post is Why I’m Enjoying WoW Again…
I think you’re missing the entire point. You’ve implemented a solution for yourself, that works for you. But there’s no single solution that works for everyone.
I’ve had email subscriptions for almost as long as I have had the blog, and I’ve had some email subscribers for just about that long as well, so clearly, that’s something that works for them. And, I hope it works well for the two new email subscribers I got today (as well as any others I pick up from this article).
My reader was so cluttered, that I simply blew it up and started over from scratch. Regarding rites that I want to visit regularly, I will simply type out the website manually. Honest, not a big deal for me, I’m a fast typist, and there’s only a few blogs that I regularly read due to my lack of time anyways. Other than that, I use twitter as my source for posts. It essentially does the serves the same purpose, since a lot of people link to their own posts as soon as they’re updated.
I catch a LOT of new posts via Twitter; on the other hand, there are lot I miss, because I am not glued to Twitter…it’s even more crowded than Google Reader!