Why wouldn't you want to be delievered to your customers?
I got the following message in my RSS feeds this morning:
Thanks for your interest in the Bastard Operator from Hell. Simon Travaglia, the author of BOFH, has asked us to remove links to his articles from our RSS feeds. We will not restore the BOFH RSS feeds without his permission.
BOFH (short for Bastard Operator From Hell) is one of many columns in The Register, an IT-related news site. I was a subscriber to a feed that only gave me the hilarious stories of the Bastard, and I enjoyed reading them.
My question is this: Why would Mr. Travaglia not want to appear in feeds? The feeds didn’t contain the full text of his columns, but really only served to send me to The Reg’s website so that I could read the latest adventure.
This is more or less like asking that clothing you design not appear in the latest Macy’s catalog!
I can only assume that Travaglia, for all his supposed technical brilliance, isn’t much of a marketer and quite possibly isn’t that interested in reaching readers. And, personally, I lament that I probably won’t think to check The Reg any longer for new articles. My news is in RSS, and I rarely venture out to visit other sites, especially ones updated as haphazardly as BOFH.
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Ridiculous
I agree totally - I keep - or rather kept - up to date with the BOFH through the feed. The only reasons I can think of that Simon Travaglia has decided to remove the BOFH from feeds are:
I’d love to know which it is!
Dave
BOFH is nogo for RSS
The author’s not stupid. It has to be either a reaction against the loss of control the publishing industry is experiencing with people able to publish their own content (which is doomed to failure). Orrr… and I think this is far more likely… the author’s income is directly tied to the ads displayed on his page. Many RSS readers are not getting those ads when the full content is served. I realize that The Register was only serving headlines, but maybe he felt it was time to draw a line in the sand before the public demanded full articles.
BofH feed
Maybe a bit late - but I found a feed for the author of the BofH stuff. The only thing in it is BofH. :)
http://feed.theregister.co.uk/rss?a=Simon%20Travaglia
LOL!
This is the first time I’ve heard of BoFL.
LOL!
This is the first time I’ve heard of BoFL.
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