Blogging Instead of Bookmarking
Today, John Chow announced that his blog had reached a new milestone: 15,000+ RSS subscribers. He also wrote that: “RSS is the new bookmark - having 15K RSS readers is the same as having 15K bookmarks.”
In the comments, 365 to Freedom and Michael Kwan both argued that having 15,000 RSS subscribers is not the same as having 15,000 people bookmark your site.
In fact, it’s better.
In response to 365 to Freedom, I wrote:
You’re right about bookmarks. I never even made much use of bookmarks when they were the “in” thing. You bookmark a site because you want to go back, but then you get so many bookmarks, you rarely ever go back to any of those sites again.
And, I always thought of bookmarks as being for sites you don’t visit every day.
Nowadays, if I find something interesting, I can blog about it and link to the site. Then, if I want to find that link again, I just do a search on my blog! I not only have a title to look for but the related content too. A post is more likely to contain multiple terms for the link, so you have many more words to search for than you would with a bookmark.
I haven’t added a new bookmark to my web browser in months, if not years.
Still, John Chow may be equivalently right in his assertion that RSS is the new bookmark. If you’re into terms like “Web 2.0,” then surely adding a site to your RSS reader is the Web 2.0 equivalent of a bookmark.
As I mentioned, I don’t even use bookmarks anymore. And, perhaps linking to an interesting site in your blog is the “Web 2.0″ equivalent of sticking it in your bookmarks. It is certainly easier to find things, unless you’re the sort that dutifully categorizes your bookmarks into well-organized categories with nice descriptive titles. Most people just click “Add Bookmark” or a keyboard shortcut and are done with it.
Of course, there is a good reason to blog instead of bookmark your links. As you may remember, the “original blogger,” Jorn Barger said that a true weblog is “log of all the URLs you want to save or share.” So, why not share? Sharing is good and can be good for you.
Most of us have blogs that cover our interests. If we like gardening, we blog about gardening. If we like sports, we blog about sports. You get the idea. So, we would also have a tendency to be bookmarking sites on those same topics. That, of course, means that the sites we would bookmark would be a good fit for our blogs.
Instead of sticking them away in your bookmarks, never to be seen again, why not blog about them? As I mentioned in my comment, you can search your blog to find a long-lost “bookmark” probably much easier than digging through your bookmarks. Plus, if it’s a good resource (and why would you want to bookmark it if it wasn’t?), why not share it with your readers? You want to be the expert in your field, right? So, blog about those interesting sites! Share them. Then people will be more likely to turn to you first to find new and exciting things in your niche.
The same goes for those great blogs you’re sticking in your RSS reader. Why not share them too?
Mind you, there might be some links you don’t want to share, such as those sites you are spying on. But, other than that, write about those sites!
You can always set them aside and save them for those days you can’t think of something to write about!
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I have to admit, I’m one of those people that have fairly well organized bookmark folders. However, I don’t bookmark blogs at all - they’re all organized in my RSS reader. Great idea about going through your bookmarks and readers to find things to share - I hadn’t thought about that!
Thanks! By the way, I like your idea of doing crossword puzzles!
I don’t really believe in New Year’s Resolutions, but I think it is a good time to have a sort of spring clean around the house, especially after receiving a lot of loot. Not only removing stuff from the house,but I clean my computer. Removing old files I will never use, some stale writing, cleaning up the bookmarks etc. I do use my book marks heavily for larger writing projects and business, but I agree they get overwhelming to navigate and then discarded.
The other thing is I don’t like to read blogs in my rss feed because I feel I don’t get the full experience, but hey that’s just me.
I tried to do some cleaning this weekend, specifically the top of a bookcase. Rather, half of the top of the bookcase. Okay, so I did clear off a few things, but it’s difficult to even notice. I should have finished dusting everything, that would have been better.
There. Cleaned. Now I can feel like I accomplished something this weekend.