A stream of consciousness from the brain of B.K. DeLong
« (In)Security at the DNCC | Main | FOAF & Political Leanings »
July 13, 2004
I've always been a bit of a "Mousepad Activist", that is to say that I have subscribed to about 100 environmental and various liberal political activist Web sites in hopes of getting emailed "Action Alerts" pertainant to my views that I can act on.
However, my folders of email from these organizations is HUGE & its a small group of companies that power these Web sites - Capital Advantage, GetActive, etc. Why can't all these groups setup user/pass logins with cookies telling me which Action Items I've already done and also offer RSS/Atom feeds of the newest action items? Or let me see all the campaigns they power so I have a place I can easily search? The amount of time it takes for a huge email batch to go out can be alleviated somewhat if there's an RSS/Atom feed that can be grabbed easier & acted upon sooner.
Of course, just as I get much more email than the average user, I probably also view a lot more Web sites via a newsreader as well - check them all out in my OPML file.
For instance, from my various news feeds I've noticed that Bush is completely rolling back the Clinton-era laws regarding the protection of national forests under the guise of giving power back to the states.
But then I had to go hunting for news on the PACs. The only one I found so far was at OurForest.org. I'm sure more will be out tonight but why should I have to search? This can only benefit these orgs & as we get closer and closer to the 2004 election, more and more fellow mousepad/armchair activists want to have their voice heard.
Nabbed some of the links off your feed list, including Alton Brown.
And thanks for pointing out the Bush/forest issue.
heh - I take it you've discovered the wonders of SharpReader? You can export your own opml.xml file using it.