inessential by Brent Simmons

Random subscriptions

One thing I’m thinking about this morning is a possible new feature for NetNewsWire—an Add Five Random Subscriptions command.

It would take five sites at random from the Sites Drawer and add them to the end of your subscriptions list.

Why do this?

There’s a joy in discovering sites that you like accidentally. You might never choose to subscribe to site XYZ based on its name or description, or based on the fact you never heard of it—but once you start reading it, you realize it’s a cool site, and you want to keep reading it.

Of course there’s no expectation that you’d like each of the five random sites. Or that you’d even like any of them. But sometimes you’d find something you’re glad you found.

It’s another way of spreading the flow, too. Some sites will always get lots of subscribers: they’re already well-known sites.

But I’ve been looking at hundreds of weblogs lately, and one thing I’ve learned is that for every well-known (and deserving) site there are many, many sites less-well-known but no less worth reading.