Oh, this is spot on. Jarno Virtanen on weblogs:

… if you procrastinate, as many do, you can just continue to check for new posts forever and ever…

Via Ned Batchelder.

I'm saying nothing. Ahem. Well, OK. I think we've all fallen into the trap of endless 'blog reading — especially given the number of great Domino 'blogs that have appeared in the last few months. I can spend an absolute age reading all the new posts, and enjoying them tremendously.

There's been some discussion in the Domino blogsphere about RSS clients like NewzCrawler which seem to compound the problem as far as I can tell: they pop up a wee window every time a new post appears in one of your subscribed feeds! Egads! As if endless "dings" from one's mail client aren't enough…

Seriously, I find that this kind of thing can really hurt programming. I really need to clear my mind, my desk, my immediate environs, and just get down to it when I have some tricky / new stuff to do. The 'phone breaks this concentration, desk-side visitors break this concentration. So really, an RSS client that tells me whenever someone posts to one or more of the thirty six weblogs I'm currently following is just going too far. Thank God I only limit my RSS use to NetNewsWire at home!

Back to weblog content: oft-times I'll get something out of my reading, something "longer-lasting" and "of use" — but much of the time I just get a kick of out of other people, what they're thinking about, and what they have to say. That's it. And if that's all this 'blogging fad gives us, that's fine by me.

Note to self: no more navel-gazing about 'blogging.

PS: a warm Domino 'bloggers welcome to Rocky Oliver! Looking forward to this one — aargh! Another must-read!

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