Subscribing to blogs, Feedly and the evolution of RSS

In less than a month Google Reader will close. Many people relied on Google Reader to subscribe to their favorite websites' RSS feeds. The retirement of the service has left many like me trying to figure out how to make sure people can subscribe to our blogs in as convenient a way as Reader. ​Since the announcement of the retirement many companies that offered third-party apps, that allowed access to Reader with additional functionality and better design, have stepped up as potential replacements. This is interesting because it will most likely lead to RSS innovations that were not pursued simply because Reader was obviously the dominant provider. 

We have already begun to see such innovation from Feedly. They have bowed to clone the Reader API and allow Reader users a smooth transition once Reader is shut down. I've been using the service since the Reader announcement. Yesterday they took it a step further by announcing partnerships with some of the most used RSS feed apps in the market currently, including Reeder, Press, Nextgen Reader, Newsify and gReader.​

I encourage you to try Feedly and follow their many helpful suggestions to facilitate a smooth transition from Reader. I've also added links to our RSS feed (to subscribe directly on your preferred app) and Feedly feed in the sidebar of the blog next to our social network links. You can also subscribe to the blog via email. 

Content or Objects: Neil Gaiman and the future of books

"I worry that too many of us . . . are certain that if only we can get 1993 to come back again, we'll clean up. That if we hold our breath and close our eyes and guard the gates with bigger and more dangerous weapons, time will turn backwards and it will be yesterday again. And we all knew what the rules were yesterday. The rules of publishing were simple. Authors, agents, books, incredibly long lunches--that was publishing. Not any more." 

Neil Gaiman is one of my favorite writers and this keynote at The Digital Minds Conference 2013 is further evidence why. 

​I've been an avid reader my whole life. Growing up in Puerto Rico my parents used to say that I was a "come libros," literally a book eater. The only thing I would consume more was music. You could see me with headphones from a brand new walkman or a book in hand, sometimes foolishly reading while walking. While my schoolmates grumbled at having to read Cervantes, Quijote was my hero.

Nothing has changed, I still devour books and music. Sometimes listening to music while simultaneously reading on the same device. Well, something has changed, I now have a deep understanding of what it takes to both write and produce a book. ​

And then there is digital. I've spent most of the past month tumbling through the wild frontier of editing, programming and packaging digital books in EPUB format. I find all of it challenging, frustrating and terribly exhilarating. I feel that to honor all those books I've read and that in many ways have consumed me, that I too have to do my part in figuring out the future of books. 

Writing, creating, is a dandelion thing. When writing, make good art. When coding, make good art. Produce beautiful content in beautiful packages, make good art. Try everything. 

Hand In Hand: Advice For Writers→

For Shared Worlds 2013, we have asked some of speculative fiction's finest artists, editors, and writers to write advice on their own hands and send us a picture.

Here are some of my favorite images and advice from the Shared Worlds 2013 Hand in Hand project: ​

Neil Gaiman

Gregory Norman Bossert

Lev Grossman

Patrick Rothfuss

Second Sleep

"Numerous other studies have shown that splitting sleep into two roughly equal halves is something that our bodies will do if we give them a chance. In places of the world where there isn't artificial light -- and all the things that go with it, like computers, movies, and bad reality TV shows -- people still sleep this way. In the mid-1960s, anthropologists studying the Tiv culture in central Nigeria found that group members not only practiced segmented sleep, but also used roughly the same terms of first sleep and second sleep. ... [Yet] almost two decades after Wehr's study was published in a medical journal, many sleep researchers -- not to mention your average physician -- have never heard of it. When patients complain about waking up at roughly the same time in the middle of the night, many physicians will reach for a pen and write a prescription for a sleeping pill, not realizing that they are medicating a condition that was considered normal for thousands of years. Patients, meanwhile, see waking up as a sign that something is wrong."  

I've been obsessed with sleep since a young age, mostly because I can't remember when was the last time I got what felt like a restful, solid night of good sleep. ​

Recently I read Dreamland by David K. Randall and ran into this passage. This is an experience I can relate to. I often joke that I don't go to sleep but that instead I take two or three naps a night with reading intermissions. ​

Introducing WordsMove.Me

Starting today you can visit WordsMove.Me to view all the Smarter Creativity writing related content.