Why Have Feeds? - A Word About Digg, Del.icio.us and Reddit
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Spend any amount of time online, and you’re going to become aware of feeds. You’ll also see a popular content feature known as Digg. Often appearing in a link encouraging readers to Digg It!, Digg is a site which allows content sharing. When you Digg a piece of content, you’re essentially voting for it. Digg is not a feed, though a link to Digg often appears next to links for feeds. It’s a content-sharing device which, in a way, is similar to feeds.
Anyone can take advantage of Digg and implement these links on their content. Anyone, that is, who knows how to write the proper code. Step-by-step tutorials are available online (it requires editing HTML within the template itself), but many Digg users have voted for one popular solution. One reader suggests creating the Digg before creating the post. Doing so allowed this reader to put a link to the Digg within the post itself.
Digg is, essentially, a form of social bookmarking. Other sites, such as Reddit and Del.icio.us, provide similar content sharing. Implementing these links also requires certain code, similar to Digg.
The Content
Once the system is in place on a Web site, sustaining feeds is a fairly low-maintenance ordeal. Users subscribe, they receive content and you just have to make sure you keep providing that content. Remember that what you’re putting out there will be read regularly and potentially seen by a huge variety of people, as feeds can arrive via cell phone and through other mobile devices as well. This makes quality control of content more important than ever, because you’re going to be expanding your audience. Make sure your updates arrive on time, because you don’t want subscribers to be annoyed by delays.
Where your feeds appear on content pages is also important. You always want your pages to have aesthetic appeal and an easy-to-navigate layout. You don’t want to overwhelm visitors, but you do want them to be aware of everything that’s available. Consider the placement of your feeds and arrange everything attractively. You want to make sure the feeds are easy to see, but you don’t want to them to swamp the content itself.
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