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August 13, 2005
Does frequency count?
Posted by David Weinberger
Pito Salas blogs about a new beta feature of his open source BlogBridge aggregator: A small histogram shows each feed’s frequency of posts.
Is this useful information? I think so. If I see one of the feeds has been very active, I may be driven to catch up. Of course, there are many feeds I value where the posts are few, and I would worry about a widget that drives people merely to the frequently-updated blogs. On the one hand, this is an aggregator of feeds I’ve chosen, so I already know that I’m going to read, say, Jay Rosen’s feed even if he’s not posting eight times a day. On the other hand, BlogBridge prides itself on its ability to help users discover new feeds, and there the frequency chart may slightly skew people towards the more frenetic blogs.
Overall, it looks like a useful meter. I hope Pito lets us turn it off if we want, but I’ll probably leave it on. (Disclosure: I’m an unpaid advisor to BlogBridge.)
Comments (5)
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1. Christina Pikas on August 13, 2005 3:23 PM writes...
I've actually un-subscribed from a few feeds that were too frequent -- I found there was no real content, it was just a laundry list of links that took too much time to clean up.
I'd rather read infrequent, well-written pieces. So, while I don't want him to remove it, it probabably won't be useful to me
Permalink to Comment2. Michael Mahemoff on August 13, 2005 7:53 PM writes...
I agree with the comment above - why should the histogram make people subscribe to frequent feeds any more than infrequent ones? It's just personal preference and you can only make those decisions if you have the data and the tools to visualise it.
This sort of info would be very useful. I'd like a per-feed histogram showing how long each post was, across time. Say, for the past 12 months. I'd give the most preference to people who post longer but less frequent posts.
Permalink to Comment3. Sascha Carlin on August 13, 2005 10:52 PM writes...
I have to agree with both Christina and Michael. Quality is more important than quantity.
On the other hand, providing users with easy to comprehend starting points for browsing a set of information isn't wrong. The question is, what other starting points does BlogBridge offer.
Permalink to Comment4. Apreche on August 16, 2005 2:32 PM writes...
What matters more to me than frequency of posting is consistency of posting. Some things I read update once a week. Some update bi-monthly. Some update multiple times daily. Usually the more frequent they update the less content per-post there is.
But the point I'm making is that a blog that updates consistently according to a schedule is pleasant to read. You know when you expect it to update and it does so. You never have to play catchup and you never go looking for new content to return empty handed. Either one of those scenarios is disheartening.
Of course, I'm sort of hypocritical here in that I update my own blog according to no schedule whatsoever. As a blogger it's great, but as a reader it's frustrating. I'm not going to say I wont read a blog if it doesn't follow a consistent update schedule. I'm just saying that the quality of the content must be greater in order for me to put up it. This is even more true for things like webcomics.
Permalink to Comment5. Paul on August 24, 2005 5:24 AM writes...
Quite intresting article posting.
Permalink to CommentPaul
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