RSS voice:
1. Select three websites covering different topics, which look likely to present new content fairly frequently. One or more, but not all, may be blogs. At least one should be a mainstream news source. Subscribe to their main RSS feed(s). Then read the sites for a week, through your RSS reader, as well as reading the sites directly through your preferred Web browser. Write up your observations at your blog, in at least two posts (one or more during the week of reading; one conclusion at the end). How does the voice of each Web site change when read in RSS, over time?
2. Close reading: choose six posts or stories from the previous exercise's sites, and focus in on how they appear in RSS. What is lost when the full Web page is reduced to a content chunk? Do you feel a need for menu bars or banners in RSS? How much of a site's persona is based on something other than its live content?
Choose two blogs and two mainstream journalism sites. How do they present RSS? Look for which icons or links they use, where RSS information is located on page layout. If they have RSS resources, what are they, and how is that information coordinated with the site's mission? What discourses do the sites associate with RSS (i.e., newspaper syndication, geekspeak, utopianism, users as participants, marketing)? Do they link to external sources? If so, what would a user infer about the site's self-positioning in global conversations? Blog your thoughts.
Over an extended period (preferably more than a week -- several weeks would be better), take a position on an issue and blog about it. Inform your public about the issue with annotated factual links, links to research reports, links to reports of legislative or judicial actions, news reports. Point out blog posts by other bloggers who take positions -- either to support your position, or to make your own points by criticizing the other bloggers' posts. Now to enlist RSS.
1. Set up RSS feeds of news searches, Google Alerts, and specialized news outlets related to your issue. For example, you could set up an alert for items about "energy efficient appliances" if global warming is your issue, or for news about immigration legislation -- any stream of information that relates to your issue. Scan your issue-related feeds daily through an RSS reader. When you find one that can inform or persuade your public regarding your issue, publish a blog post with a contextual link to the site you've discovered.
2. When you find one or more feeds that consistently provide high-quality information regarding your issue, find out how to embed RSS code on your blog, so the headlines and links from your selected feeds automatically appear on part of your blog page.
Page Last Updated: Aug 4 3:35pm by Howard Rheingold