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Do We Need Yet Another Way to Read Blogs?

I spotted at megnut that Kinja, “a new blog reading tool,” is live today.

I have several issues with this.

1. Kinja? What kind of name is Kinja? You actually expect me to remember that?

2. What does it do that my RSS news reader of choice doesn’t do for me already? (Mmmm… RSS. RSS is goooood…)

3. What does it do that other services such as BlogLines can’t do for me already? (At least I can remember that URL.)

4. Is it getting press attention from the NY Times today (password required, free) just because Nick Denton is the president of the company?

5. Can you only read excerpts of blogs through it? Because I really hate only getting experts. I have even evangilized in the past to get people to beef up their RSS feeds to full posts if not full posts with comments. Excerpts annoy me.

6. Back to my original point, and the question others seem to have too (even Nick admits it’s not original) – is it all just hype? What can Kinja (ugh, I hate that word) do for me?

I just don’t get it. Can someone please explain why I should want or need this? I’m all about new gadgets, but Kinja just doesn’t seem to have what I need.

By Christine

Christine is an Avenger of Sexiness. Her Superpower is helping Hot Mamas grow their Confidence by rediscovering their Beauty. She lives in the Heights in Houston, Texas, works as a boudoir photographer, and writes about running a Business of Awesome. In her spare time, she loves to knit, especially when she travels. She & her husband Mike have a food blog at Spoon & Knife.

11 replies on “Do We Need Yet Another Way to Read Blogs?”

This is weblogs for dummies. The goal is not to get people who know what they’re doing to use Kinja, it’s to get people who aren’t blog readers to try blog-reading by providing digests of the “big name blogs” they hear about and a few others.

Julian Sanchez is going to be annoyed that they call him a liberal, too.

From a trademark perspective, “Kinja” is a great name. It’s short, completely made-up, and the url was available.

What kind of name is Xerox? Coke? Kleenex? You expect me to remember those names?

Its just like anything else.. Someone gets an idea and low and behold the next thing you know there are dozens of the same thing for you to choose from. I think Kenja is a really crappy name too. Oh sorry Kinji..

‘Kinja’ sounds like a rip off of my reader, Awasu. Perhaps Japanese-sounding names are ‘in.’

Lord knows I’ve tried several times to make my RSS feed full posts. I’ll expressly copy a template that everyone says is full posts, but it always comes out excerpts for me. I’m hopeless.

From a quick read, this sounds like a service that intends to say “hey, these are sites we think are cool, go read them!”. I don’t know about you lot, but half the fun for me in blogging, even when I was just new, was discovering the blogs I liked. I think I would resent someone offering suggestions. Sure, if a blogger I like recommends something I might check it out, but that’s a bit different, there is a level of connection involved. This is a bit like me taking the word of a movie reviewer, I think. But then I guess I’m not the target audience. 😉

Well, after reading this, I gave them a shot.

It’s not bad, though nothing all that different from bloglines.com. I might keep using them, but if they start charging, I will be cancelling…ain’t really worth money.

Because with Kinja, you see the circle of life complete… for we die and our bodies go back to the earth, which feeds the grass, and, wait… what the hell are we talking about again?

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