Because a Web site doesn’t exist for me unless it has RSS, I made a bundle of all the feeds of 11 awesome news photoblogs recommended by 10,000 Words.
My bundle is here.
Sadly, six of these 11 feeds require you to click out of your reader to view the photo on the host blog’s site. I’m happy to get the pointers, but requiring the extra effort reduces my interaction with the content. Isn’t this an opportunity lost? I understand this might generate a chance to increase the value of the main site, but why not elegantly incorporate ads into the display area that is the most convenient and most accessed by the viewer? I suppose there are issues about controlling the presentation, but that’s not a new concern (or a concern at all for those of a certain philosophical bent) for Web publication.
And with the Play tool of Google Reader, this issue has gotten even more interesting. I now effortlessly have a more visually pleasing way to view my personalized feeds, though it will appear only if you’re signed into your Google account. In a way, I have a photo magazine (with room for ads), courtesy of Google’s presentation tool and the feeds of news sites. Well, I would if the feeds all showed me the photos, rather than required me to click out.
The feeds requiring traveling outside my semi-personalized Web experience: The Denver Post, The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Voices of San Diego, the L.A. Times, and The Mercury News.
I noticed 30 amazing photoblogs (and a few tips for creating one), a related post on 10,000 words, and made the following for it:
- 12 of the 30 feeds plugged into a bundle. The 18 others failed to have a photo show in Google Reader, so I did not use them.