Following the shock revelation that 60% of my readers are viewing this blog via an RSS feed, I realise I've got my priorities all wrong. The majority of diamond geezer's consumers are now viewing a stripped-out feed, not my main blog page. So I need to stop focusing on my web presence, and concentrate instead on keeping my RSS subscribers informed. Always realign to the majority - that's the best way to optimise market share. It's time to stop worrying about how my blog looks, because feedreaders don't care. It's time to maximise information and minimise presentation. It's time to go monochrome. Hey RSS readers, today's post is for you...
Hello. We don't normally get to chat like this, do we? I hope you're well. I thought you might like to know what you've been missing by only reading my RSS feed. It appears I've been deliberately making part of my blog inaccessible to you, the bit that doesn't appear in any my daily posts, namely my comments and my sidebar. And for this I apologise, because equality of opportunity is where it's at these days. We need to catch up. Sidebar first.
This is me. Well, it's the image I use to represent myself in the online world, the Jack of Diamonds. He's been perched up at the top of my sidebar for six years now. You probably saw him once, long ago, before you defected to the other side. Pleased to make your reacquaintance.
There are exactly 1400 days to go until the London Olympics begin. Good excuse for a party, I reckon. I've been counting down since the 2012 Olympics were announced, way back at 2578 days to go. Doesn't time fly? They'd better hurry up and finish that stadium.
You can email me if you like. Yes, I have an email address - who knew? And I have a Twitter account too. Given how much you like RSS feeds, you might be more interested in my Twitter RSS feed. But be warned that I use the service quite sparingly, so don't expect lots of inane banter about who I'm going drinking with and which social media sites I aspire to.
I have another blog, called lndn, where I re-post all my London-related blogposts. It's usually way out of date (about a month late at the moment), and you're not missing anything by not reading it. But you might be missing out on my photographs. You've probably heard me mention individual photographs a lot, but you can also access the whole stream direct (or more likely subscribe to yet another feed).
There are some great things going on in London this weekend. Apologies, you'd have known about them all by now if you read the main blog because I display in the sidebar. Fat lot of good that is to you feedreaders, I know. But here's this week's big list...
I also have a blogroll that you never see. There are always 20 blogs in it, and I update the list sometimes when someone great and new comes along (or when someone old goes on hiatus). Here's a list of the 20 blogs I'm linking to at the moment. I could link direct to their RSS feeds, to save you the trouble, but I think you deserve to view their main page at least once.
And I have archives too! I know that in your feederworld, only the last few posts are probably visible. But there are about 3400 older posts still in the system which you can't easily access, plus a collection of 73 monthly archives to peruse. I'm not going to link to all 73, but I've selected one month at random should you get bored this afternoon and fancy a trip down memory lane.
As for comments, which are the most important thing you never normally see, I thought I'd cut and paste a couple from yesterday's 40-odd comments so you can see what you missed. Click here to be taken directly to yesterday's comment page without the need to pop-up via my blog first. Really, it was a great conversation - all lively and intellectual, and fascinatingly focused.
You make an interesting point about passivity. I'd like to counter that perhaps as the number of blogs grows, and as the number of blogs people read grows, people feel less inclined to comment as they feel that their point of view has already been represented elsewhere. Alternately, it could also be a symptom of troll fatigue. The feeling that there is no point making an intelligent observation because you'll be just drowned out by people arguing over trollish comments. Lokulin
The main thing is probably dilution by transfer to other forums, especially Facebook, MySpace and Bebo. Small clusters of people who used to read and comment on each others blogs, may now be in the friend lists on Facebook and so no longer posting "to the world" - which was always only theoretical, as only the same group ever read anything.F Moon
And finally, if you'd like to contribute to today's comments thread, let me make it easy for you. It's here.
This is me. Well, it's the image I use to represent myself in the online world, the Jack of Diamonds. He's been perched up at the top of my sidebar for six years now. You probably saw him once, long ago, before you defected to the other side. Pleased to make your reacquaintance.
