Um, please don't *de-customize* my Interwebs experience, kthxbai


A cross-post from my vegan blog about how pork rinds recipes don't belong in a vegetarian blog RSS feed

I read many many blogs. Hundreds. But I read them in my RSS reader, currently NetNewsWire. I scan the headlines and click on ones that pull me in, and typically I read as much of the post in my actual reader as I can. Yes, I sometimes open the post in a browser...mostly when I either want to comment or tag the post in Delicious.

The down side to this (besides people who only syndicate partial feeds...hint: I don't really read them very often) is that it can sometimes get by me when a feed moves or changes. I can miss administrative news like that if it's not screaming at me form a headline.

So, imagine my surprise when in the headlines for a blog I subscribe to named "Veggie Chic", I saw a recipe featuring pork rinds.

I actually went to look, figuring..."Hey, do they make vegetarian fake-pork rinds now?" or "Hey, it must be a joke."

And what I discovered is that although the feed was still named VeggieChic in my reader, it was now actually the feed for some completely unrecognized blog named BlissTree.

I was very, very confused. Only because I am a blogging nerd, who also happens to be in the blogging business, did I continue searching and trying to figure out what happened. And I did finally discover this press release from about a month ago explaining. Seems the publisher of Veggie Chic decided to consolidate their hundreds of blogs into four umbrella blogs, and that those previously independent blogs would be categories or sections of the umbrella blogs. Part of their rationale includes:

"In effect, a loyal reader of any b5media blog would likely enjoy knowing about others in the same category."

Um, not when a recipe involving pork rinds shows up in my vegetarian blog RSS feed, guys.

And oh, if you *are* going to do that, then how about letting people subscribe by category then? I spent even more of my time trying to figure out if I could just subscribe to a piece of Blisstree, the vegetarian piece. But it seemed only certain blogs/categories offered that feature, not all.

In other words: I spent what was probably nearly 15-20 minutes trying to find a way to continue reading your content, and had to give up, abandon ship and unsubscribe altogether.

I wanted to remain a loyal reader, but I was not able to do so.

There's something wrong with that picture.

Posted: Sun - May 10, 2009 at 08:49 AM       EmailFeedback

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