Vote no to RSS feed readers.

I’m convinced that RSS feed readers are responsible for the degradation of the blogging community.  While convenient, feed readers restrict creativity and reduce the blogging experience to merely reading text on a screen. Reading the blogs of your friends via a feed reader is like reading a book on the computer — cold and mechanical — as if to say only the content (and not the form) matters.  A person’s blog, much like a book, communicates through its structure and design as well as the written word.  The templates we choose (or choose to design) are an extension of the words we write.  This is why I vow to visit your actual blog from this day forward.

Research has (probably) shown that a reader is 10 times (+/- 10) more likely to provided feedback on your blog when they visit your site instead of reading your posts through a feed reader.  Visiting blog sites has also been known to lower your risk of heart disease and increase energy levels (when done on a treadmill).

Will you join me in visiting the blogs of your friends?  Will you choose comments over convenience?  Together, we can change the (blogging) world.