Well, aren't you lucky that we're trying to combine the terminology around "subscribe" to be email or RSS, and have it "just work".

See http://dev.bryght.com/t/wiki/SubscriptionsModule -- although it uses a lot of dev language. The main point being that "subscribe" is the entry point, after which the user can decide whether email, RSS (or IM, SMS, etc.) are the ways that they want to be notified.

I like where you're going with that, Lee. What I'd like to see is the box you've shown there stay in page via AJAX. Basecamp does this well on the "People" page of a project for adding new companies and people.

Boris is right too, "subscription" should be about reciving notification of a site's updates, and letting the visitor decide how they want to get it (email, RSS, IM, SMS, etc).

Likewise--what you're thinking should be a workable and efficient way to do what you want.

Where I'd question this approach is: is it really a "subscription"?

I personally don't think "subscription" is the right concept for RSS, but it is the popular way to describe it. Labeling things differently than what's popular can be counter-productive if you're users are tuned into the popular approach.

One area of question you might think about: are you giving people a way to read your posts away from your site, or notifying them when they can find a new post on your site, or both? The way you described it in your post was more like "notification".

Anyway, as with many labels, "subscribe" may be close enough to the most important things that you want to convey, that it's the best choice, even if it's not perfect.

Just make sure that the subscribe page describes what's going on so that your users that do click through will learn and know clearly what the subscribe links mean. (Make sure it's easy for them to get back to where they came from too!)

Also, if it's an option, you might include a small icon or other visual indicator (e.g. font, color) to "brand" your subscribe feature. I'd suggest something way smaller than an RSS clicklet, but the RSS chicklet is also an example of associating a site feature with a visual / brand element.

You can do this with R|mail. If I get a bit of time, I'll try and write the HTML for you. In the meanwhile, type rmail at Google.

Thanks for the input folks! Great stuff.

Let me know what you find out. My mom's little non profit has a blog, http://www.sjlinus.blogspot.com - but most of her readers aren't RSS folks. They need email sub option. I'd love to help her implement this!

I have something like this already on my blog. A simple Subscribe link that on hover drops down using a little javascript. Users are then presented with subscription options and a brief explanation. Its pretty simple to do and as someone mentioned earlier R|Mail could be used for rss mail subscribers. I however use a plugin for wordpress to handle post and comment subscriptions. Mine still needs some refining, like presenting the user with a textarea for easier email subscribe/unsubscribe, rather than link as well as cleaning it up and making it look nicer and more user friendly. A service doing this like the new solosub.com with a remember option would be great if many blogs used it.
I'm thinking that on hover opening, I should have an X for close rather than having to hover the Subscribe link again.

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