Q: Prithee, tell me, how goes the blogosphere? (Also: Why RSS previews suck)
A: The blogosphere, I am delighted to report, is well and good and fair; for Andrew Sullivan, my very favorite gay conservative blogger (possibly my favorite blogger of any sexual orientation/political mindset) has moved from time.com to theatlantic.com, where he becomes Senior Editor.
Who gives a shit? I'm glad I asked! Those of you familiar with the exciting world of RSS know that, when setting up feeds, bloggers have the option of offering full posts or just previews of those posts. Almost all top blogs offer the first option (sometimes ad-supported, as with the Gawker Media empire's feeds1). But Time Magazine switched to previews a few months ago, possibly because they believed it might prop up their failing business model to force subscribers to visit the site2.
RSS previews are fine, I suppose, for stuff like the Comic Curmudgeon or the Perry Bible Fellowship, feeds that are only updated once daily or weekly. But with Sullivan's Daily Dish, which updates something like once every seven minutes3, it completely eliminates the concept of what's supposed to be Really Simple Syndication. 
Why do through the trouble of opening a new tab every time a Sullivan item came through my Google Reader, when I can view all the day's items just by visiting his site? And so I'd canceled my Sullivan subscription; and then invariably neglected to visit his site, on account of laziness.
Thankfully, the Atlantic Monthly is smart enough to realize that, in the democracy that is Web 2.0, you'll always be better off in the long run by keeping the users' best interests in mind. And so Sullivan is back to full RSS posts (good news for me), back on my reading list (good news for those of you who like to check in with my Recommended Reading), and back in my heart (GREAT news for Andrew Sullivan).
Some notable recent items from A.S.' D.D.:
- Hugh Hewitt is starting to address the fact that the U.S. condones and practices torture — and only a few years late.
- The prospect of "President Giuliani" excites Republicans, disgusts New Yorkers.
- Showcased by Sullivan "for Valentine's Day" without commentary (or advance warning), this prize-winning wedding portrait of a Marine recently returned from Iraq confronts viewers with the grotesque realities of war.
- No, Sullivan's posts aren't always pretty, but he's not milking the horror for shock value. The Daily Dish simply presents the world as it is: sometimes funny, but often just awful.
1 Ad-supported RSS feeds will probably become much more prevalent, once AdSense finally makes available its feed-based code (which has been in private beta for nearly two years). And as goes Google, so goes everybody trying to compete with Google. The good news is, I hope, that the uptick in RSS advertising might help to eliminate the use of previews-only feeds altogether.
2 Time Magazine is not exactly the sharpest knife in the drawer when it comes to technology; just look at their hideous favicon (and yes, I am a huge nerd — as if I hadn't already made that clear).
3 Speaking of which: Has Andrew Sullivan cloned himself? How does a man hold down a Senior Editor position while simultaneously being the most prolific blogger on Earth?
