What is The Bloggers Digest?

Tell me what you read, and I’ll tell you who you are – Martin Heidegger (20th-century philosopher)

When I told my friends that I wanted to start a blog about blogs the response was tepid at best. There were a few ‘that’s interesting…’ followed by an eyebrow raise. To prove that they simply couldn’t understand the genius of my idea, I countered that the coffee table book about coffee tables was well received and made it to Regis and Cathy Lee.

Although I’m still struggling with how to define The Bloggers Digest, I feel strongly that it’s existence serves a unique purpose, one that I spent a lot of time trying to discover online in the form of RSS readers, top 10 blog lists, and countless hours searching for quality subject-specific content.

Maybe some of the idea behind tbd came from a nostalgia of that bygone era of newspapers when you could actually read useful, interesting, or informative articles and interviews with a comics section and a crossword. Or maybe it came about due to my loathing of RSS feed readers. As someone who was reading 20+ blogs regularly, I was that last vestige of a group of people that stubbornly refused to use the RSS feed reader because it was offensive to my sense of aesthetics to see everything that I loved to read laid out in the same sterile, vanilla box. (I also loathed, aside from the subscription fee, that it always told you how many articles you had missed! and that there was no thought put into layout – everything was always a one column grid) I wanted reading to feel fun and cozy, not like a chore! On the flip side, RSS feed readers aren’t incredibly friendly to bloggers either who host advertising on their site, because readers never see those ads.

I daydreamed of an RSS feed reader that was laid out like an old-fashioned newspaper. Where you could get everything you want to read in one long well-organized page with multiple sections, and where the content clicked through to the originating site, so I could still enjoy the formatting, typography and other bells and whistles that came with that content.

Regardless of where the inspiration for tbd came from, I hope that it can serve as a tool to introduce and connect people to quality independent media content, and as a platform and outlet for bloggers to showcase their work. I’m super stoked to be able to feature tips on blogging and web development, interviews with the people behind the blogs, as well as to host original content like the ‘Talking the Talk with Chris and David’ podcast. I’m even stoked about writing the occasional article or two – even though my writing muscle has atrophied a little with disuse.

Here’s what I can assure you about tbd.

What The Bloggers Digest is:

• Independent media
• Always free to both the readers and bloggers
• Both original content and curated links
• A place for readers to discover grassroots, up-and-coming, and established blogs and websites and binge read their favorite subjects
• A platform for bloggers and websites to get more eyeballs on their posts, including niche or unique content that might otherwise be buried or overlooked by search engines and feed readers
• Daily crossword puzzles, comics, and inspirational quotes
• Original interviews with bloggers and a ‘Little Random Blog Generator’ feature for readers to discover new content

What it is not:

• An RSS reader like Feedly or Feedspot or a newspaper although it has elements of both
• There are no algorithms or data mining to determine what blogs are featured. A live person, (usually me!) reads the blog and determines if it’s interesting, informative, entertaining and/or worthy of sharing with my readers
• While you may see a few ads eventually, there will never be any subscription fees for featured sites or for readers
• We do not feature any premium content that requires a subscription or any content from major news outlets
• It is not a place for sharing polarizing or judgemental views. Notably, we do not directly aggregate any political content (that being said, we can’t control what people write in other content areas).  Since most people today receive an overabundance of exposure to news and political opinion on a weekly basis through the internet and social media, it’s important to me that this be a place where people can come to tune out all that and enjoy a different, more relaxing kind of reading experience.

The Bloggers Digest is constantly evolving.  Find out how you can be featured on tbd by reading our FAQs. Please note: you must provide evidence that you are the blog owner in order to make a submission.

Have you ever used an RSS feed reader?  What did you like or not like about it?  Tell me below in the comments!