Guilty Pleasure: Tay Zonday Crashes Into Weird

The latest from our favorite internet celebrity.

This is a little nuts...even for him. Hard to decide whether he intentionally dialed up the craziness/oddness factor or this is just genuine Tay. Either way, good for some renewed water cooler chat and more hype for the everyday celebrity- brought to you by YouTube.

Media Snacking: RSS Readers As Personal Space

A little while back, I wrote this post, wondering how much I should respect media snackers. But since then, I've been thinking I may have pulled the trigger too quickly on that one.

Because really, how can I not (or at least try)? After all…my name is Avin, and I am a media snacker.

RSS has been a godsend for me. Don’t get me wrong, I love to read, and do so as often as possible (latest: the world without us, very interesting exploration/thought experiment). But when it comes to online content, its truly amazing how much RSS lets us get through in a day. Sometimes I don’t know what the hell I did before it.

And lately, I've been thinking about whether I, as an admitted media snacker, feel respected by companies I deal with.

I don't. Not necessarily disrespect in regards to length of content (since I'm kinda being disrespectful to fellow snackers with the length of this post), but disrespected in my media snacking experience itself. Case in point is my RSS reader. I treat my RSS space much differently than if I were reading the same content on the original website- be it news, blog posts, whatever. For me, my RSS reader feels more personal and worthy of more protection. I picked which feeds would appear, tagged and grouped them to my liking, and filtered out all the content I don't want.

And yet, I'm still subjected to banner ads from companies I didn't invite, pushing stuff on me I didn't ask to see.


Honestly, if I saw those same banner ads on the original site, I probably wouldn't think twice about it (note: that's still not a good thing).

But when they pop up in my reader, it seems like an invasion of privacy, an invasion on the snacking I'm trying to do. Often times, it dissuades me from even wanting to read the story (or stay on that sites feed).

Working in this business, it can be quite disheartening to see opportunities to participate in conversation with people routinely overlooked in favor of interrupting. Instead, why not provide some interesting content which people would want to add to their own RSS feeds? Or somehow, make the feed browsing experience better?

Thoughts from fellow RSS enthusiasts? Do you feel the same kind of privacy invasion when ads interrupt your reader? Any examples of companies/agencies (yours or others) that have found a better way? Care to share how you've gotten clients to go in a different direction?

On Second Thought, How Much Should I Respect The Media Snacker?

On a recent post, I added a note about respecting media snackers. It wasn't until a few days later that I actually had the time to think a bit more about what it meant and why (or why not) I should be trying to respect snackers.

Truth is, providing content that could've been found anywhere (ie, in simply reposting a video) doesn't really make me feel like I accomplished a lot (other than ending a post drought). Sure, I do it from time to time (sometimes too often, given crazy schedules), but the posts I feel best about are the ones that took me more than 3 minutes to put up. The ones I've rewritten 10 times. The ones where I've added pictures and video simply as extras (or not at all), not as the focal point of the post itself.

I can understand the desire to respect media snackers (and admittedly, its a label that often applies to my own media habits), but specifically when it comes to blogging I don't know how much I really should. In fact, sometimes I think I give a bit too much respect to the snackers and don't dedicate enough effort to creating a more meaningful post that requires me to think about and clearly state my point of view on something (but I'm trying to get back on track).

But curious to hear what others think. What are you looking for when you come here (and to other blogs)? Quick bites of content, or posts that make you stop and think (or somewhere in between)? I'm sure it varies depending on the blog you're reading (I know it does for me), but interested to hear thoughts on the media snacker topic in general.