March 15, 2005
Please won't you help your RSS feed find a home?
UPDATE (April 4, 2005): Thank you, thank you, thank you (and throw in my undying admiration, as well) to Molly E. Holzschlag of molly.com for raising the visibility of, well, the raising-the-visibility-of-XML-feed-links issue. (Now, if she could only do something to cure me of hyphenated adjective run-ons.) Something tells me her critiques, questions, and insight will get a wee bit more coverage than my ranting and raving (read whining) here at little ol' hypocritical. It's nice to see that the thought leaders, who have followings that tend to listen, are recognizing this as an issue.UPDATE UPDATE: Molly was kind enough to stop by and comment. Go to her site now. Quit wasting your time here.
ORIGINAL POST
Dear proud parent of an RSS feed:
I have really enjoyed reading your insight, your pithy verbiage, and your unique view on the industry as a whole. I would very much like to add your feed to my feed reader, perhaps even my blogroll. However, your RSS feed link is buried so far down the page in 2-point font that I'm having a difficult time finding it.
Now trust me, you're not alone in this respect. Some of the best bloggers with the most popular feeds are guilty of the same offense. But, quite honestly, if we're trying to gain acceptance for this whole "feed" thing, don't you think it would be wise to make it as brain-dead obvious as possible about how to get to the feed? Because, readers, bless their hearts, aren't always willing to work hard enough to find it on their own.
And I know, some of the blogging services have developed your template. And I know that the feed is located somewhere down in the nether-reaches of that template. And I know that if you're really "in the know," you've coded the alternate link information into all of your pages for auto-discovery. I know all that, and I'm still writing this.
It's your job to give your RSS feed more visibility -- the visibility it deserves. It needs above-the-fold exposure to survive. So get to work. Grab an orange chicklet. Or go get another promotional graphic at FeedBurner, or the other feed reader services. Do something.
I can guarantee that if I find you interesting, thousands of other people will, too. But only about one in a thousand is going to take the time to scan your page for your feed link. And I think I was the one.
Please, please, please won't you give your RSS feed link more visibility? Please? (Insert tear rolling down cheek and puppy-dog eyes here.) Sniff sniff. Your public deserves it.
Thanks in advance,
Rick
Please won't you help your RSS feed find a home?
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