If you don’t read blogs via a handy feedreader, you should. It saves sooo much time.

Daniel has started RSSDay, which will be on May 1.

RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication. There’s a video on the site, but I’ve heard RSS or feeds are like an email inbox for websites/blogs.

I’ve got well over 100 sites that I monitor on a daily basis and going to each site to see what was updated would be crazy insane. With my feedreader — Google Reader — I can do it straight from my iPhone in bed!

By the way, if you haven’t subscribed to my feed here, click here to subscribe!

Over at iThemes, we’ve just released our inaugural free WordPress themes. We think this represents a first-step contribution to the WordPress community in the realm of free theme releases. Along with our free WordPress video tutorials, we plan to make more contribution to the community in the future (so stay tuned).

[ Download and demo these web 2.0 blog themes here ]

Here’s a quick screenshot to show you what they look like:

By the way, these themes were designed by a great freelance designer named Spencer Barfuss.

I just did a phone interview with a reporter from our state daily newspaper about blogging. And in the interview, it seemed like I keep coming back to the idea of the popularity of blogging being attributed to it being relatively easy for people to do it.

I said this comment directly, which I’ve said many times before in a seminar I did on the subject and also person to person as I’ve explained this “phenomenon,” … “Blogging platforms lower the bar for what it takes to publish and maintain websites.”

I explained that in 1999 I bought this domain name and began posting my humor columns when I worked for daily newspapers as a copy editor and writer. To just maintain the site at the time took almost more time to update it, keep the links active, than my actual column did.

But blogging … or the software or blog platforms that run them … took almost all that work away. It automated it. It made it easy … at the click of a button type of easy.

I also told the reporter it’s so easy — publishing a blog — that if a person could operate Microsoft Word, they can publish a blog.

… and that’s why … the concept of blogging won’t go out of style.

What I’m talking about is … the concept of making it easy and near effortless to publish and maintain websites won’t EVER go out of style.

And that’s what blogging — the concept, the online software and platforms that run them — has done for the Web … and personal websites.

I love to see friends (and clients) make the news and be successful …

Penelope was recently featured in a TV segment about professional blogging here.

It’s a pretty neat feeling seeing her book in Barnes & Noble too. (Not to mention her book is packed with some excellent and unconventional career advice.)

I recently discovered FreelanceSwitch … a blog site dedicated to freelancers like myself.

The site has two great things going for it … outstanding content … and outstanding design.

Just love the distinctive look and the email and feed sub buttons. Powered, of course, by none other than WordPress. Rock on, guys!

[BTW, stupid disclaimer: if you don't realize this, I did NOT design this site ... just saying it rocks.]

Just stumbled onto this new service called Tumblr.

The site says: “If blogs are journals, tumblelogs are scrapbooks.”

Interesting stuff …. I’m going to toy with it.