Feeds and the Blink Test

In: Blogging

10 Jun 2006

Reading anything using a feed reader allows prevents us from discriminating against the content.

Start with an inflammatory statement, then back it up, using the wisdom gleaned from Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink. Why do feeds prevent us from initial discrimination? Because we have no point of reference other than the text in front of us, and the occasional image. There is no way to make a quality judgement based on differences in appearance or layout.

In fact, the feeds we read are often filtered by the influence of others. We react positively to someone’s raving review of a feed, and we incorporate it into our subscriptions.

The decisions we make in those initial seconds may sour over time. Feeds grow old, stale, uninteresting. But the why did we subscribe in the first place? Was it a decision based on the layour of a site? The way the person looks?

No. It is based on the feedback of others, and the content we encounter.

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About this blog

Stephen Pierzchala is one of a 10-year veteran of the Web performance field who also writes on topics that interest his non-linear world-view.

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