Daily Archives: August 9, 2003

Summaries vs. Full Posts in RSS feeds

I read this on Chris Pirillo's RSS resource site. Clipped from this post, it makes a point that I agree with: summaries don't entice me to regularly read the content from that site.

If I read a summary, I have the extra step of opening the site in a browser and reading the article there, complete with ads and graphics. Two sites, TidBITS and MacInTouch do this to a frustrating end. The summaries are either inconsistently used, in the case of TidBITS or vague and of no value, in the case of MacInTouch. I still read both publications regularly, just as I did before they had an RSS feed because the content is so good. It's written and edited well and their journalistic reputation is of the highest quality.

Overcoming Skeptics

Tim writes that getting past skeptics is hard for new business owners. I have to agree. I've tried to start a business myself, but never followed through, due to the nagging skeptics in my life. Sometimes, though, I think it's been for the best. Most of the skeptics have pointed out large flaws in my business plans, preventing me from doing something very stupid.

Radio, Trackback and Technorati

I was reading AndrÈ Venter's post about Technorati, linked from This archive post has the details about the Technorati pinger. I read through the second post, found the wiki link and read through the Radio Userland posts (all two of them). I wondered if, with the new implementation of Trackback in Radio, the code exists to ping Technorati, too. I started perusing Radio.root and I think I found the right place:

system.verbs.apps.weblogsCom

Maybe if Jake Savin is reading this… :>

…he can look at this and see if this can be added as a user pref, something like “Ping Technorati?” with a checkbox.

As for now, people who use the web interface of Radio, just add this:

http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping

to the “URLs to Ping:” box on the Radio home page. If your Radio subscription has run out, re-up now to get Trackback. It's worth it!

P.S.> Why not be able to ping a person? I know that's Trackback, but I want “Track-before”. I guess that's email. I read a post this morning about that, but now I can't remember where it came from.