In case, you've noticed, I don't give more than two or three tags to my post, because I feel too many tags make the cloud look messy. But look here- lots. That is because of
Lazyfeed.
I am the kind of person who hates chaos, and wants to keep things under control. Lazyfeed gives me a reason to break the pattern- you just can't keep anything in control when you use Lazyfeed as your RSS aggregator.
I think a brief introduction to Lazyfeed is in order: unlike other aggregators, Lazyfeed brings you feeds by tags- now you know, don't you!- I want this post to get into Lazyfeed through many windows, so multiple tags.
And that is the reason bloggers should help Lazyfeed find its feet: it is relatively new with its redesigned user interface, and it could do with your support: and you could do with its.
There are only two ways for me to get into your feed reader: either you subscribe to this blog, or in case you use Google Reader or Netvibes, I follow you and hope that you follow me back and read my feed.
But with Lazyfeed, there is hundred percent chance that everyone who has subscribed to the tag that you add to your post will get a chance to see it. For bloggers, this should be a godsend. This sort of random exposure is likely to earn you a good amount of readers if your blog is any good.
So, I hope Lazyfeed finds strength. The more people sign up, the better it is for us.
That is just one reason. Lazyfeed is a sort of misnomer, it
is busy. Imagine you have subscribed to just about ten or twelve tags, like, social media, twitter, friendfeed, facebook and so on- and consider the amount of writing that is given these tags: there is no way you can keep track of all the posts that are generated all over the web. They all come into Lazyfeed. And it lets you subscribe to any number of tags you want to. Chaos.
I hated it in the beginning: before I could finish reading a post, three more would have come in. It was stressful, and frustrating. My feed reader is Google Reader- it is as static as static can be. Lazyfeed is nothing like it- if Reader is a docudrama, Lazyfeed is a disney film.
Don't think of Lazyfeed as a feed reader- no matter what they say. It is more like Luckyfeed. Because there are literally thousands of posts streaming into your feed everyday. What happens is that you get to read some of the feeds that get updated in realtime while you are at Lazyfeed, and it is your luck that decides what you get to read.
Sounds crazy, right? But not so. Many of us haven't heard of RSS, and of those who have, there are many who hate feed readers. It doesn't look right for them. And here is Lazyfeed, trying to turn the basic purpose of feed reader on its head: I use my reader to keep track of blogs and news, Lazyfeed would have none of it. It is a stream, and you go fishing, and there are lots of fish out there, just cast your net- you are sure to come up with what you want.
It works, actually.
So, I'd like you to sign up at Lazyfeed. If you are a blogger, you should- because it gives you and me and people like us greater exposure than what we've got till now. And if Lazyfeed thrives, it works better for us. So, support Lazyfeed, no question about that.
And then, if you don't have a blog, but post on Twitter and Facebook, Lazyfeed will help you find and share good stuff. You can connect your accounts to Lazyfeed, and update them with a couple of clicks.
Here are my suggestions on how to use Lazyfeed:
- Don't try to read every update in every feed. Relax and enjoy the reading experience. If you have subscribed to the tags that interest you, chances are that, you will get more than what you have bargained for.
- There is a way to get around the randomness, though. If you 'bookmark" (subscribe) to the posts (shared items) of the people who share your interest, you'll get to look at what they have shared: this works like curated content. For instance, if you subscribe to that of thirty people who share content on Social media, there is no way you'll miss anything important. In fact, whatever is important, you are certain to get by way of your friends.
And I'd like Lazyfeed to enable these two things at least:
- Give an RSS feed to my posts and let me do whatever I want to with it- may be I'll autopost it to Tumblr, or use Twitterfeed to post to Twitter at regular intervals (if I share from Lazyfeed to Twitter on realtime, my followers will get about twenty links in one hour! They are sure to hate me for it)
- Merge all my Bookmarks (Subscriptions to shared content on Lazyfeed) into a single stream. The way it is now, I have to click every one of them individually to view them one after another. Too much work for a lazy man. Fact is, most of us will spend less than a hour on Lazyfeed- it is hateful that there is no way to catch up with what has passed through during the rest of the day. Curated content, stuff by way of shared items, which you can access by timeline, is a way out to ensure that you miss out on nothing.
In case you wonder, I am not quitting Google Reader- I've gotten used to it, and it is too valuable for me in many ways- but I'll look to use Lazyfeed a lot more, especially for the innovative design of the user interface. It is drastically different from Reader.
Do sign up at Lazyfeed, it is likely to change the way we use feed readers. May be everybody has been doing it the wrong way, and that is the reason it has not taken off, and Lazyfeed is on to something momentous: it could bring in the paradigm shift that RSS needs.
Image via Wikipedia
