Role of RSS in weblog conversations

Paolo on keeping RSS traffic in control:

There seem to be an idea in the air which I absolutely don’t like: aggregate feeds only once per day.

Quite often weblogs host conversations and in conversations timing is important. I want to know asap when people I often have conversations with post something to their blog, it can’t wait 24 hours because it would make my reply old (let alone further replies). I also use my aggregator to be up-to-date with my colleagues, and even in this case I need to be updated frequently.

This quote and me picking it up illustrate well a few things about weblog conversations:

• timing is important; a conversation can develop fast
• notification about contributions is important; RSS subscriptions seem to play an important role in it (are there alternatives?)
• conversations may easily develop in not intended directions: Paolo’s post is about possible solutions for RSS traffic problem (e.g. Peter Breuls continues this line), but I picked it up to illustrate totally different idea

Archived version of this entry is available at http://blog.mathemagenic.com/2004/09/10.html#a1343; comments are here.

• Is it difficult to ‘catch up’ with a weblog?
• Time in blogging: writers time and readers time
• Successful conversations: visible conventions and social visualisations

Tagged as: blog conversations