(…if that’s what you really want to do)
Using Feedjournal bloggers can essentially pdf their content by putting the feed for their posts into the site’s generator. The result is the blog laid out in a newspaper style, complete with headlines and bylines, you can even make a masthead if you so wish.
Dave Lee has tried it out on his blog and I have to agree with him that I’m not really sure what the point is. The idea of taking a functional online publishing platform and shoehorning it into a ‘traditional media’ format seems counterproductive.
Plus it doesn’t really make longer posts more user-friendly, as, having tried it out on our feed, a long enough post will take up a whole page and find its way to the front of the ‘paper’.
On the other hand the service could be a way for newsletter-style publishers to better link their print handouts with content online. Being able to repackage a blog’s content so quickly could encourage these kind of operations to devote more time to what they do online without neglecting their print operations.
For e-paper fans, however, the forthcoming release of a FeedJournal service for readers, allowing users to select the feeds that make up the pdf’s content, might be more appealing.
I agree about the reader service being useful. Imagine being able to take all your favourite feeds, print them off in a minute or so, and then read them on your daily commute…
Would be better if they just ditched the whole paper layout, though. Make it a good looking newsletter, and it’ll be much better.
Exactly – from the looks of things FeedJournal knows about feeds and (to some extent) about blogs, so why opt for such an unappealing newspaper design?
P.S.
Newspapers have been around for awhile to say that the newspaper format is “Unappealing” is an unfounded statement. Maybe you could suggest a design that would be better?
Don’t be a Troll.
~Becks
Hi Becks,
I didn’t mean that the idea of a newspaper is unappealing, just that more could be done with the layout of the FeedJournal pdf to give it more of the ‘wow’ factor that it promises. I was referring specifically to this pdf design, not all newspapers.
Granted I have only tried the trial version and I imagine other settings would allow mastheads, pictures and more input from the user as to how the final ‘newspaper version’ looks.
Becks and Joel – different names, same email address – what’s the connection?
“Becktemba” is a nick name my friends call me.
Regards,
~Becks (A shortened version of my Nick Name)