Comments on: When Floated Figures Attack!

By: zcorpan

zcorpan — Sun, 07 Aug 2005 17:33:23 +0000

Also, disable CSS and images to see if it makes sense. Does “giraffeJust the other day, I saw a giraffe crossing the street.” make sense to you? The image should probably be in its own paragraph, and have either a much better description, or just an empty string, as alternate text.

By: Ollie

Ollie — Wed, 20 Jul 2005 16:15:56 +0000

Recently I had a look towards tackling precisely this problem in my NetNewsWire stylesheet.
What makes this tricky is the number variations that arise from seemingly very few factors. For example the basic decision of whether or not to have the image appear on it’s own line (clear the following text) could be affected by:
- Width of the image compared to the text block width.
- Height of the image compared to the number of lines of the paragraph which contains it (again dependent on text block width).
Basically it all stems from placing an element of fixed dimensions within an otherwise flexible text flow.
As much as I love the idea and potential power of microformats for this problem – I can’t imagine what it would take bring something, which is so trivial to most people, into sufficiently common use to take hold.
At the same time I am a fan of consistent plain text in feeds, where does one draw the line?
–
I read this article in NetNewsWire styled with my own CSS.

By: Oz

Oz — Sun, 17 Jul 2005 16:56:31 +0000

I also agree. I’ve tried various RSS aggregators, including the interesting Bottom Feeder developed in Smalltalk. But notification methods seem to be my preference, and then I can just visit the original site.

By: Flag

Flag — Fri, 15 Jul 2005 05:26:24 +0000

I agree that RSS is better used as a notification method, like Firefox’s LiveBookmarks. Partial items in the feed are not teasers, but simply motivators… If you like the post, continue reading at the site; get the full experience as the author has intended.

By: shorty114

shorty114 — Thu, 14 Jul 2005 05:59:35 +0000

I read this in Bloglines :)

By: Ben

Ben — Wed, 13 Jul 2005 21:53:38 +0000

Nope, I personally come and visit the site whenever there’s a new post. I use a LiveBookmark to find out when that is though.

By: Mikhail Bozgounov

Mikhail Bozgounov — Wed, 13 Jul 2005 14:26:07 +0000

I was reading this post in a webbrowser, not in a newsreader.
I still prefer reading blogs and other content on the web in my browser, and open websites from bookmarks or from the address window, typing addresses by hand…
I guess I am simply “old scholl”, I guess;-)

By: Andrew Kaufmann

Andrew Kaufmann — Wed, 13 Jul 2005 01:31:28 +0000

First off, props to SimpleBits for coming up with a topic that gets 50+ responses in the blink of an eye.
I find myself nodding in agreement at several responses, and when I look at the author of them, it’s always Mike D. I’m totally with him on this front.
I want people to visit my site. Right now, there are no advertisements on it. But I plan to have them at some point, and I want people to see that. I don’t think that’s a crime. If I provide full text RSS feeds, there’s a good chance they won’t visit the site, just view the feed. Which isn’t what I want people to do — I’ve created a *web site*, not a collection of web content. My product is this web experience. My product is not solely the text of each post. I know that people love ad-free, no charge content. But bandwidth isn’t free. It comes out of my pocket right now — I’d like to make that back (and if a profit happens, then I will celebrate the day). The only way to do that is via advertisements. It’s the way of the web, of television. I’d love to make everyone happy and just provide content because I’m in the mood. At best, it’s naive to expect me to provide this no-strings-attached content. At worst, it’s selfish to expect it.
To me, RSS is a notification tool. I provide summaries in my RSS feed. I want you to know that I have new content, and if the topic interests you, go check it out. If it doesn’t? That’s ok. You’re not obligated to read it.
But I’m also not obligated to provide it for any use other than the uses I want. Mike D makes a good point about feed stealing.
I wish there were an ideal solution. RSSing full content for a portable reader is an example for which I’d like to make an exception. Unfortunately, I don’t see a way of doing that while still encouraging people to visit my site.
The idea of paying for full text RSS feeds is a great idea in theory — but people simply won’t go for it, I don’t believe. Newspapers and magazines with an established long-term reputation have a hard enough time getting people to simply register for their content — let alone pay for it. Why would someone pay for my content when there’s so much free stuff out there?
I sympathize with people wanting the control of the content, but I want that control to remain in my hands, as the copyright holder. I want to skip commercials on TV just like everyone else, but I realize that I don’t have to pay to watch Law and Order because of those commercials. (I don’t have a DVR.)
I know full text feeds changes user behavior — when I’m given a full text feed, I often just read the feed, and skip the full page (unless I’m leaving comments). When given just a summary, if the summary is interesting, then I’ll load the page and read the whole article. In the latter case, the site just got one more set of eyes. And I click on Google AdSense ads regularly — I’ve found some good services through it.
To me, RSS is perfect as it is. I don’t want big RSS feeds showing up in my reader, and I don’t want to provide big RSS feeds. Really Simple Syndication. Keep it simple. If I want to load a page, I’ll open my browser. In my aggregator, I just want things simple.

By: be OH be

be OH be — Tue, 12 Jul 2005 21:06:25 +0000

Picaresque is an instant classic.

By: Stephane Deschamps (nota-bene.org)

Stephane Deschamps (nota-bene.org) — Tue, 12 Jul 2005 15:47:33 +0000

As a matter of fact I was reading the entry through an aggregator, itself being pulled through avantgo into my very old Palm III, which doesn’t handle images anyway, doing my technological watch whilst on the train back home… phew… :)
I think I’d leave things the way they are. After all, one knows that aggregated content is not meant to be designed —or does one? It sounds a bit like you’re looking for a headache (a kind of like when someone asks “how about doing an all-HTML newsletter that would display exactly the same in all clients”), don’t you think?