Poll

Participating in Blog the Recession has made me think about the role of RSS and how people use it, in part because of this article, which I read when I was prepping that post. I didn't actually get everything in the article, but it did get me curious.

I've had a site feed on here pretty much since the start but, to be perfectly honest, I never really understood what the hell it did until relatively recently. I never signed up for Bloglines or Google Reader (you may remember I was not a Google fan in general for quite a while) so I never actually used anyone's RSS feed and I didn't think much about whether people were using mine. It was there and some people seemed to like it; win-win, story over.

I have never claimed to be an HTML code guru. That would be like claiming I'm a master chef -- I can cook, sure, but no one will ever pay me to do it and few seek out my advice. When it comes to making things work here at the Ping, beyond the standard Blogger template, I've either figured it out, had help or let it go. Anything you see here (including the ability to subscribe to my RSS feed) is the result of cobbling together what people have done for me and what I've been able to pick up along the way because I will chase down "how to" on the Web like a bloodhound on the scent until my eyes cross.

Why am I telling you all this? Two reasons, actually; it is both 1) the reason for the poll that I'd like to have you take part in, and 2) the reason that poll is not actually on this page. I simply can't figure out how to get the code to work within Blogger, but I was able to make it work on a page from my very old Yahoo! GeoCities site (go figure) and then point you to it.

Without further ado: I'm curious. How do you access your favorite blogs? The poll will be active for one week and is open to anyone, including those people who ended up here because they were searching for something related to The Hunt for Red October and got here instead! It's simple, it's fast, it's anonymous and I'm asking nicely. Please? Thanks.

Do your part - Blog the Recession

Kristen at Motherhood Uncensored has come up with a way to put a little more cash in the hands of some of your favorite bloggers, at a time when most everyone is feeling the effects of the current economic condition. She has decreed this August as "Blog the Recession" month and has launched a campaign that starts tomorrow.

To paraphrase her explanation: During August, just make a "pledge" to click through to the blogs you follow from your feed reader. (And since I know there are newbies who stop by, check here for an explanation of what that's all about.) Extra page views can make a big difference for bloggers who could really use the help or, for people like me who don't have a revenue-producing aspect to their blog, it's just a nice ego boost.

If you want to be a part of it at your own blog, go get a button at Motherhood Uncensored, put it on your site (check out the swingin' pig down there to the right), then ask your readers to click through and do the same within a post. Send Kristen the link to your post, she'll put a link to you on her site and you'll be entered to win some prizes.

I have finally gotten into the swing of using feeds on My Yahoo, so this works for me. If none of that is your thing and/or you don't blog, consider doing what I've been doing on a casual basis lately. At the sites of my favorite bloggers who generate income through ads, I've been making a point of clicking on their ads as often as I can to help line their pockets via the Big Business coffers. (UPDATE: Please note, I am not asking you to do this or suggesting you should. I am only mentioning something that I have been doing - for me this is significant because I usually ignore all ads. I am now clicking on to those that have some relevance to me or that intrigue me. In other words, I'm paying attention to them and trying to be a good consumer; I'm not talking about random click-throughs.)