Smart Feed: Site for Sore Eyes

It's all in the name. SmartFeed by FeedBurner.

When I first started this blogging effort, I knew that providing a "feed" would be important. While reading other blogs, I noticed many different ways to subscribe. Some sites had a dozen buttons of various colors and acronyms. For my taste?...too many choices and they take up valuable real estate. One button should do it (and I promise to add a button soon - right now, it's "Choose a Feed" link to the right).

But, I knew a button was necessary. I got one that read "RSS" which led to an annoying gray pop-up "file download" window which led to ...more work.

There had to be something simple. Something that would allow a reader, whether they were experienced or new, to easily subscribe to the feed without having to know VHXQTML...or whatever popular language of the day.

I went to Ask Dave Taylor, and found he already answered the question. I went to Feed Burner to get SmartFeed. Here's what I like:

• It's Free
• It's Easy
• It's good copy...better than the gray pop-up or the code that some buttons provide.
• It'll work with any type of aggregator (I use SharpReader) UPDATE: added link
• It shows recent entries.

As a copywriter, I know the importance of providing the audience with the next step...without hurdles. Smart Feed removes the hurdles in the path of subscribing to a feed.

I may be alienating some of my tech-savvy friends here, but as I've said before - I'm savvy enough to know what I want, but not enough to know how it's done. More importantly, most of the people who will read this blog are in the same boat.

This whole RSS-XML-Atom-Feeds-Subscribe issue may prove moot with the popularity of Firefox and the new features on IE 7.0, but why make it hard until then?

I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts on feeds or aggregators. For all I know, I'm still wet behind the ears - but that's what makes this fun, right?