Reading Indie Blogs Right
I’ve been a reader of indie bloggers – over 100 at last count – curating them in my RSS feed for years. But here’s the thing: I haven’t been giving them their due. I was reading their posts through a read-later app, which, while convenient, comes at a cost.
This changed when I discovered a new indie blogger, Keenan, thanks to a post by Kev Quirk. Kev linked out to Keenan’s article, and as always, I explored Keenan’ssite. That’s where I stumbled upon something interesting: a post titled “RSS Readers Make Me Want to Jump into a Vat of Acid!”
Keenan’s post sparked a realization. I was missing out on the full indie blog experience by relying solely on a read-later app. These bloggers put time and effort into making their websites – the design, the “About Me” page, the Archives. In an app, all that disappears, replaced by a sterile, uniform layout.
But that’s not all. When we read through read-later apps, the bloggers themselves miss out. Their website traffic and analytics don’t reflect the actual readership they’ve cultivated.
So, I’m making a change. I’m going to start reading indie blogs the way they were meant to be read – on their home turf.
One great feature of the RSS reader app Reeder is the ability to easily read an article on its original website. On your iPhone or iPad, simply swipe left in the article view to open it in the Safari in-app browser or your default browser.
Let’s give indie bloggers the credit they deserve. Let’s appreciate the work they put into their content and their online spaces.