Print My Blog (How to turn a perfectly good blog into a dead tree)
Apparently this is the month of converting virtual blogs into dead tree versions.
The Print My Blog site recently came up with a plan to sell books of people’s blogs. Business 2.0 promptly slagged the plan as being the “dumbest idea of the week.”. And then Darren Barefoot defended the Print My Blog people, but added a twist. He then rightfully however slags the site for a) not having a blog; b) being image based so that text can not be excerpted, and c) not having pictures of their sample product. All good points Darren. Meanwhile, Hugh at Gapingvoid.com is going to turn his “How To Be Creative” stuff into a book (I would link to this info but his links are all broken), and Cliff over at Beyond Bullets is getting his published by Microsoft Press. Whew!
I have a MUCH simpler request from all of the blogging types in the world.
Build a PRINT THIS BLOG widget into all of the major blogging services. Just like the one that we find on all of the news articles. And when you hit that button, you should get a new window with every blog post from the beginning of time until the present in one big stinking long window so that you can print or read it.
Why would we do this? Well, have you ever been referred over to a blog and poked around and thought, “hey this is a really good blog and I want to read the whole thing.” What do you do? You find the archived months and you begin clicking and reading (in reverse) order. And then find the next month and read THAT in reverse order. Repeat until you have read the entire blog from start to finish in the most difficult, stupid, and backwards way possible. Don’t get me started on trying to print out a 100-200 page blog to take with you on a plane to read.
When I read a blog, I am interested in the person’s thought process evolution over time. I don’t want to read their blog and have the experience be like watching the movie Memento where you start in the future and work backwards until you piece it all together.
For day to day reading, yes, I want the new stuff at the top. But for historical start to finish reading, I want it from oldest at the top to newest at the bottom and I want it all in one HUGE long window.
That’s my little request for the day from the blogging community. I can just hear the cries now. (“Heretic! He wants blogs to go FORWARD! Burn him!!! Does he weigh the same as a duck? If so, then he’s made of wood….and therefore he’s a witch!”)
Listening to: I Cry (Original Mix) With Mandel Turner from the album “New Comer” by Llorca