Reading RSS Blog by Blog
I've been using RSS for more than a decade, but the past two months have been something special. I've always loved tiny websites—blogs by self-made writers, often operating in some niche. I was always charmed by them, but they were really hard to find. Over the years, I've collected website after website, growing my collection of RSS feeds.
But ever since I started writing my own blog, and especially getting involved in the Bear platform and participating in blogging challenges, I've come to know many new blogs and writers, and my RSS feeds have grown exponentially. It’s an amazing experience, but also an overwhelming one—there is so much good content!
Sometimes I add a new blog to my feeds just because of one post that touched me, and I want to see what more that blog will bring. I'll admit that this can cause me to forget which blogs posted which posts that I liked, and it bothers me. To counter this, whenever I open my RSS reader (the excellent Unread), I try to open each blog on its own, see what’s new, and read the latest posts. Even if there are a lot of blogs that introduce only one post, causing me to go back and forth between blogs in the app, I still try to do it.
Why? Because then I feel like I can get to know the writer and the blog more intimately. I can connect more posts with the blog's name and develop a sense of familiarity with the writing. It makes me feel more connected. This is essentially an extension of how I think people should read indie blogs.
An abundance of good content is a great place to be, but it can also be hard to navigate sometimes. I’m definitely still finding my way in the indie web.