Tuesday, March 13, 2007
200 is My Magic Subscription Number
As other bloggers have commented over the past few days on how they read blogs, I have decided to chime in, as well as make a public declaration not only of how I read them, but how many I will read.
Google Reader is my feed reader of choice. I say “feed” as I subscribe to feeds that are not necessarily blogs, such as the news headlines from Web sites. It has worked well for me, both on my PC and my Treo 680. I browse through all of the new feeds in a big list, and do not use any of the other features, including folders. This is acceptable to me as I have a variety of feeds, both business and personal, and going through the list and reading the mix is a good break in the day for me.
Last week I decided to keep the number of feeds I subscribe to fewer than 200. I have found that I don’t put too much thought into a blog or Web site when I subscribe to the feed. If I happen upon the site for whatever reason and find some useful information, I will just subscribe. It is not until I subscribe that I see what the feed gives me. If the content is no longer relevant to me, duplicate of something else I am reading or if there are too many posts, I will unsubscribe.
Two hundred has actually been the cap I have been using all along, noticing it when I manage my feeds. Do you have a magic number for your feeds?
Posted by
Mike Maddaloni on 03/13 at 06:19 AM
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I’m at 80 right now, not really feeling like I have more to read than I can handle…
Comment by
John Wall
on 03/13/07 at 07:03 AM
Wow, I’m feeling overwhelmed at a dozen or so, mostly because I’m a compulsive reloader. I’ve definitely got to look into generation two of the feed readers.
Comment by
Dr. Pete
on 03/13/07 at 10:40 AM
Whoa - 200!? I use Firefox live bookmarks as my ‘reader’, and I’ve got 25 sites tagged. That seems to be about my limit.
Comment by
Drew
on 03/15/07 at 07:31 AM
Since my original post, and a few comments - some outside of the blog - I went thru the list and I am now down to 175.
Not all of these posts are what I would call active. Some are from news services that I usually just scan the headlines and never read the content of the post.
But I do admit, if I go anytime without reading, there’s a huge queue awaiting me - not fun.
mp/m
Comment by
Mike Maddaloni
on 03/15/07 at 07:59 AM
Actually, I use RSS in a bit of a different way. I don’t read the feeds of sites that I would regularly check. Instead I have seven folders on my firefox toolbar. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Day 1, Day 2. Every Monday, I do a “open in tabs” for the monday folder. And I check the “day 1” and “day 2” folder almost every day. I just feel it’s a little overwhelming to have a bunch of RSS feeds for websites and clicking through all the posts.
Instead I use RSS for the sites that people barely ever update. And for obscure searches on craigslist. For instance, I have a feed set up to alert me whenever someone makes a post about rock paper scissors in Chicago. Same goes for flickr. Anytime a photo is tagged with Chicago and olympics, I get a notification. I like to keep tabs on when my employer (Tribune Media Services) lists a job opening, so oodle is handy with their feeds. Chicagocrime.org’s feeds is a great resource to find out if a crime happens on your block or any of your friends’ and family members’ blocks.
So given all that, there’s about 500 feeds that I check daily.
Comment by
spudart
on 03/21/07 at 10:39 PM
Interesting approach spudart - I don’t use the folders feature in Google Reader, or any other organization, but I am finding that I go to read certain feeds more than other, so I will consider your approach when I take the few brain cycles to make sense of it all!
Comment by
Mike Maddaloni
on 03/22/07 at 06:12 AM
200 feeds, waao! thats a lot of feed to read 
Comment by
RSS Feed Submission
on 09/14/08 at 02:19 PM
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