Feed Simple

Signing up for a feed should require ONE CLICK. Our brains want us to tap the orange buttons and be ready to roll. Make it really "really simple."

Share Your Thoughts on RSS

Did you make it this far into the column? What are your thoughts about RSS? Have you tried and failed at it? Let me know your horror stories with this and other supposedly "easy" technologies.

It's More Fun Not to Compute

That's contrary to what Kraftwerk tells us, but increasing numbers of people are mothballing their gadget acquisition program. Boston Globe columnist Maggie Jackson calls them "tech refuseniks," saying they are not "neo-Luddites" but "people who thoughtfully choose which gadgets they adopt."

"'These are people that have the means, education, background, they fit the profile, and yet they're checking out,' says Dan Ness, principal analyst of MetaFacts Inc., a technology market research firm in Encinitas, Calif. 'It's not just about the haves and have-nots, it's also about the wants and don't-wants,'" Jackson writes. "One-fifth of cell phone owners who don't have computers had a PC and gave it up, according to MetaFacts. Others draw the line at the cell phone, a handheld or even an answering machine."

Luddite -- sorry, "refusenik" -- Jon Potter, 25, is hot on e-mail and cold on cell phones: "'It's important to me to have times where I don't have to think about everyone else,' says Potter, executive director of a Winooski, Vt.-based mentoring nonprofit, the Dream Program. His decision inconveniences his friends, 'but it's something that I really value,' he says. Still, he admits that to many of his friends and colleagues, his decision is a 'running joke.' Refuseniks often suffer ribbing and pressure when they opt out of a device."

Sounds like cranky ol' Jon needs his buddies to stage an intervention.

Ad Hawk

In other Boston news, the Globe -- which is owned by the New York Times Co. -- will use an online auction to sell a half-page's worth of ad space that appears on the front page of its Sunday classifieds section, the New York Post reported. "Each week the ad will be sold to the highest bidder through BostonWorks.com, the companion Web site to the print classified section of the same name. The bidding starts at $15,000 and rises in $500 increments. There is also an 'instant purchase' option that allows any bidder to immediately buy the ad at a fixed price. For instance, bidders can purchase the May 22 space for $39,500 -- the normal price they would pay based on the paper's rate card."

Georgia on My Phone

President Bush knocked 'em dead in Georgia (not that way) when he addressed thousands of its citizens yesterday in the capital city of Tbilisi. But not even the first visit of a U.S. president to the former Soviet republic could prevent a 21st century violation of presidential protocol. Well, perhaps "violation" is too strong a term, but darn it, how else do you describe the bald guy just behind the president who was yakking away on his cell phone during the speech? I asked the kind staff at the Georgian Embassy in Washington, D.C., if they could ID Inconsiderate Cell Phone Man, but they said they hadn't received the video yet. On a side note, Georgia's English-language daily The Messenger reported that the cellular network around the airport was shut off as a security measure when Air Force One landed at Tbilisi International Airport on Monday evening.

Spamahassee

Broward, Palm Beach and Miami-Dade counties are home to more spammers than anywhere else in the nation, and practically the world, Florida's Sun-Sentinel newspaper reported. "More than a quarter of about 180 hardcore spammers tracked by watchdog group Spamhaus are based in Florida, and most of those are in the tri-county area. The city with the most spammers in the world is Boca Raton," the article said. "Why South Florida? Spammers and anti-spam groups cite a combination of reasons. They include the warm weather and laid-back lifestyle, lenient bankruptcy laws, proximity to Internet data centers, a history of telemarketing and e-mail marketing, and the state's longstanding image as a good place to do dirty business."

How thick with spam could it be, you ask? The paper answers: "South Florida is so notorious that some experts attributed a short-term decline in global spam after last year's hurricanes to the assumption that the storms disrupted spammers' operations."