I don't really use categories like they probably should be used anymore. I started out doing it "right" but then I started blogging with an offline tool, which doesn't allow me to manage my categories, so if I want to use a new category, I have to go out and create it, then post using my offline tool. The idea of blogging for me is that I can write something up quickly and post, and be done with it. The two step process doesn't work for me - I'll fit it into an existing?category! Hence the reason I have more posts in "General" than any other category.

Combine that with tagging, and all of a sudden, categories seem relatively useless. I'm not the only one who's saying this. Kevin Briody asked the same question recently (prompting my post), and I completely agree with him. I still use my categories because...well...because they're there. When I started a technical blog at GeeksWithBlogs back in June, I didn't even bother setting up categories, relying on tags to organize my information.

So, my question is, does anyone use my categories? If they went away, would you even notice? I used to have feeds by category, but those are gone (except RossCode Weekly, but that's a different story) now, so I don't think anyone is using those anymore. Maybe I could use a few high level categories and allow subscriptions to those to seperate out technical and sports content. Would that be useful? Or should I just kill categories altogether?

Removing the categories would free up space on the left sidebar. Which reminds me, if you're an aggregator user, you may not be aware that the site has been redesigned - not totally, but a pretty good makeover.? It just feels cleaner to me. Plus I finally figured out a good way to make quotes and code snippets look good online, so that's why you've been seeing more of those.

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