Theocacao: Cocoa Blogs Update for March 2008

Cocoa Blogs Update for March 2008

After a request yesterday, I sat down and moved Cocoa Blogs over to the new server. The first step is just that the RSS feed will be updated, then I'll take a look at the web site itself. Also, it's now free to everyone — even those who have not made a donation.

The feed is available here: feed://cocoablogs.com/feeds/articles-newest.xml

(the DNS may still be in transition, so try again later if you get a 404 for the feed)

I'm very grateful for the people who donated to Cocoa Dev Central last year to help offset the time and expenses for running the various sites. The idea was that you if you donated $20, you received a valid RSS account for at least a year.

As I mentioned at the end of each thank-you email, the entire premise of a subscription-based service was experimental. It was mainly inspired by the Daring Fireball membership, and it generated many more donations than I ever expected, but it was not nearly enough to compensate for the time investment.

So I think the feed is better for Cocoa programmers as a whole if it's available to everyone. The only downside to this is that some people might feel that they paid for something which is now free. I thought about this for a while, but decided that that anybody that was generous enough to donate would probably see the value in opening it to everyone.

If anyone wants to discuss this you can contact me at theocacao with mac dot com on the end. I really don't want anyone to end up upset about this decision. There are no ads on any of these sites, and the donations were a big part of that.

Finally, I've added a Cocoa Blogs twitter account, so send something to @cocoablogs if you'd like to nominate an article or site. I don't plan on actually posting items there for now because most articles benefit from a bit of explanation. I'll probably announce feed URL or site changes there (in addition to here, of course).

Enjoy.

Cocoa Blogs Update for March 2008
Posted Mar 29, 2008 — 7 comments below

Daniel Jalkut — Mar 29, 08 5690

Hi Scott - I doubt anybody will feel hurt by your decision to make the feed free. You're doing a great service to everybody here. If one or two people complain, don't take it too personally.

Jeff LaMarche — Mar 29, 08 5691

Holy cow! I just recently came back to Cocoa Programming after about eighteen months of doing contract Java work and being too busy to do much else, and let me just say that these sites are an absolute gold mine to me!

I for one understand (and am thrilled) by your decision, but may I suggest that you put a link, or at least a more obvious link for accepting donations on these pages? I looked around on both cocoadevcentral and cocoablogs and didn't see one. I'd like to throw some love your way. If not, then at least let me buy you a drink at WWDC. :)

Niall — Mar 30, 08 5693

A link to the feed on the home page would also be a good idea! Whatever meta data is required to display the RSS icon in the URL bar is not working either.

kenneth — Mar 30, 08 5694

You should consider trying to get The Deck to advertise on Cocoa Blogs. Might give you some cash and they're usually pleasent ads. I personally even enjoy seeing those deck ads.

Orestis Markou — Mar 30, 08 5695

I've gathered a few Cocoa blogs and created a planet here:

http://www.planetcocoa.org

I don't do any monitoring though; just a planet.

Perhaps you may find it helpful!

charles — Mar 30, 08 5696

Great feed! I never knew there was such a feed, or that one could donate, or that CocoaBlogs was still alive :-)

...

Blog designers — Dec 29, 09 7063

Thanks for great stuff!

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