Technology giveth and technology taketh away.

Jeneane doesn't like aggregators:

You know what happens to blogs when all you do is feed off their feeds, but you never click through and you never link and you never comment? THOSE BLOGS FALL DOWN GO BOOM. And the people you are forgetting to talk to are some of the hardest working bloggers in blog business. Working their asses off so you can save yourself the trouble of clicking a damn mouse. You'd rather read them in an ugly scrolling window. That's like coming over for dinner and eating in the front yard.

What's the matter with us? We have to get out and WALK the blog neighborhood.

I too have been uneasy about aggregators from the beginning. I didn't use one for ages and then only used NetNewsWire out of professional interest to see what all the fuss was about. Trouble is I then started building up my subscription list and needing to keep across large and larger lists of sources. It felt inevitable that I used the power of an aggregator to keep across all of the stuff that was important to me.

But I have stayed uneasy. It felt like I wasn't really visiting people any more. I had turned relationships into content. I was also increasingly frustrated that I didn't really know who was reading my own blog as it is hard to get a sense of how many people access your content through RSS and because of the lack of referalls you can't get to know them.

I talk about RSS and aggregators in my workshops promoting them as a good thing and I found myself thinking while writing this post that maybe they are justified in a business context where extracting information and processing it are what work is about.

But then I stopped myself.

Hang on. Isn't that falling into the same old trap as those so wedded to real grown up business who I spend my time tilting at? Isn't that just seeing business as a purely logical, mechanistic, efficient, money making activity rather than the relationship based, idea driven, potentially glorious pursuit I so passionately believe it could and should be?

Maybe I need to be advocating slowing things down, taking the time to build relationships, aspiring to raise the game and deepening the meaning that really makes the world of work worthwhile.

As Shelley says:

Communities, friendships, a sense of companionship and sharing can't be made or broken through the use of tools. If anything, when we become friends through our online associations, we have done something extraordinary - we have reached beyond the limits of technology and created something human, and real.

But it's a fragile reality - like the shadow of a pale moon.

Technorati Tags: internet, blogging, meaningoflife, organizations, work, management, blogs, socialcomputing, business, knowledgemanagement

Comments

[Kathryn]

I use an aggregator to help me keep track of which blog has new posts. When I'm feeling short on time, sometimes I read the posts in the aggregator, but more often I glance to see if a post catches my eye and then click to go to the actual blog to read it.

I like visiting the blog itself. Otherwise you miss the personality expressed in the design and doodads the author uses. I agree with Shelley's metaphor about the fragility of out online relationships. And I also agree with your idea about advocating slowing down to build something worthwhile in business. Business is an organism, and we've made it operate as though it's beset with cancer.

[Brent Simmons]

I use an aggregator -- in fact, I'm typing in one right now, and I'm visiting this site. (My aggregator has an embedded browser).

I wouldn't have know about this post or this site except that a keyword search feed in my aggregator happened to turn it up.

I don't really understand why people think aggregators prevent you from visiting sites -- I go to sites all the time. I go to sites I didn't even know about, and I also go back to sites that I love, which are familiar.

Because I use an aggregator, I see *more* of the web than I would otherwise. (In a browser, with people's design and blogrolls and everything. Where I often leave comments.)

[Euan]

Hey Brent - thanks for dropping by. Actually after writing this post I thought about how much I would miss the ability NetNewsWire has given me to keep across lots of themes quickly and I didn't mean this to sound critical of your app because it is a cracker. However I do still believe working this way has changed the nature of my relationship with other bloggers and not necessarily for the better.

[David Tebbutt]

Do you really want relationships with all the people who read your posts in an aggregator? I think not.

Okay, you miss out on statistical information - "hey, my blog is read ten million times a day" - but that's meaningless anyway.

I honestly don't think you're missing out at all through aggregation. If something you write stirs us, we make contact.

Even people who've never heard of you.

So an aggregator, IMHO, actually does you a heck of a lot more good than harm.

(If I've missed your point, forgive me)

[Euan]

I think you have slightly David. Jeneane, Shelley and I may be harking back to the old days to something that has gone forever but there was an intensity in the relationships then that isn't there any more and it has something to do with the way we experience each other's blogs and chopping them into individual bits is part of that.

[mad]

I use my aggregator to check out the headlines of some the blogs that I have seen and liked and want to keep abreast of. But, if I really like a blog, I link it to my blog and click through from there. I am not a techno and am using these tools as they work for me, personally. I'm having a blast, meeting some amazing people and don't remember the "good old days" because I have only been here since January. So, from a newbies perspective, this is all evolvling in an interesting manner, allowing me to access a lot of input, and well there you have it. I do agree we need to slow our own choices and be considered, but that has nothing to do with blogsphre and RSS, IMHO.

[mad]

ps- Feedblitz delivered this to my inbox-
(Thank you Feedblitz!)

[Suw]

I think it's horses for courses. Sometimes aggregators are good, sometimes they are bad. It depends on the person, the place, the time...

I wouldn't be keeping up with any blogs at all without my aggregator. And I wouldn't feel like I had any sort of relationship at all with anyone if I didn't have my '12 blogs I always read every day' folder.

Yes, you get a better feel for someone's personality if you see their site... but y'know... I get a better feel for your personality by hanging out with you face-to-face and if I didn't read your blog in my aggregator I wonder if we'd still make time to meet up?

I also wonder if what's changed is not the technology, but us. I'm constantly reminded that I'm changing just as much as, if not more than, the blogosphere and blog technology itself. When I wonder why I don't feel the same community I did two years ago, I have to accept that it's because I'm not on IRC as much, I'm not on AIM as much, I'm not going to as many meet-ups as I did, I'm not blogging as much, I'm not commenting as much. And none of that is down to the technology, it's down to me being too busy to find the time to do these things. Is that the aggregator's fault, or mine?

And finally, what's with all the bold? I feel like I'm stuck in some sort of nasty infomercial...

[derekc]

Well, fancy that. Two comments from me on your blog in one day. This is the by the way one - the other was searched from Google.

I've just set up an online event which does little else but introduce people to blogs with a view to eventually using an aggregator. (We call it Blogwatch) This is for people to whom actually using/writing a blog is too much, but they need to keep up somehow, fpr professiona;/personal reasons.

I've visitied Jeneanes site with the agg post, and she may be slightly exaggerating to make a valid point.

I like aggregators as Kathryn and Mad describe: quick catchups, keeping up with blogs I MAY like to follow up on - and as a memory aid.

I was interested to meet Mark Bernstein this week. He follows closely a few blogs. Aggregators help us follow shallowly a lot of blogs. Is that so bad? It's like a round of acquainences - and do we want to get caught up into the numbers game - where do we get our tips? personally it's not from Technocrati or dilicious - it's from people - that wonderful community vision that you write about from Shelly.

Well. In two weeks when we set up Sharpreader in our little online fun, I will tread very carefully. Should I tell you that I'm going to subscribe to your blog??

[Euan]

Hi Derek - thanks for dropiing by! Blogwatch sounds interesting. I too advocate the use of aggregators to keep across lots of information. As I said above to Brent I wasn't meaning to bash aggregators more to reflect on the change they brought about in my relationship with other bloggers.