New feature: FeedLand for linkblogging. It's new today, so if you have any issues, please report them in the thread. #
I don't often see links to articles on Semafor, a new journalism platform started by Ben Smith formerly of Buzzfeed and the NYT. One of the reasons I rarely see links from them is that they still apparently don't have an RSS feed for their stories. If they had a feed, I'd be subscribed and I'd be much more likely to notice, and would probably occasionally pass a link on to my followers. There is a distribution system that helps new pubs like Semafor boot up. My advice, do two things: 1. Put a linefeed at the end of each line in your HTML source so I can get some ideas where you might have put your RSS feed. 2. If you don't have a feed for your top stories at least, stop everything and do it. Every day you delay is more exposure you don't get. I asked them to do this when they started, so this is the second request. #
A reader named Bruno writes with a link to the Semaphor RSS feed. "I never found it on the site. It was completely by accident, just typed the most obvious thing et voilà!" I'm subscribed. #
The journalism industry ought to form a news Twitter. It could be part of the fediverse, but it should also have its own easy UI. There are ease-of-use advantages to centralized systems. A lot of the people who use Twitter need the simplicity. A service can be both centralized and open at the same time. A lot of people got their first exposure to the web on AOL, for example. But news needs to have a single point of congregation. Twitter was providing a useful service there.#
Meanwhile Substack seems to be doing exactly what I was proposing for the journalism industry to do, another end-run around the asleep-at-the-wheel journalism industry. They learned nothing from the Twitter experience. #