I’ve started using an RSS reader again and I’ve come to the realization that the only way to prevent RSS overload is to be absolutely ruthless in managing my subscriptions. My rules at the moment are: no headlines-only feeds and any high-volume or summary feeds must be of consistent high value. Even with those guidelines I’m up to 94 feeds and a typical weekday brings in 330-370 new items. It’s time to cut back.
Google Reader Trends make it easy to pinpoint which feeds are sucking up too much of my time:
Farewell, Autoblog. I love you dearly but I just don’t have the time for 22.4 posts per day about cars. We’ll keep in touch on weekends and holidays.
Goodbye, CrunchGear. Your siblings TechCrunch and CrunchNotes are must-reads but you bring absolutely nothing to the table.
And so long Gizmodo. We go way back and voting you off the island was not a decision that I made lightly, but… You post too much and it just isn’t the same without Joel Johnson at the helm. It’s not me, it’s you.
Engadget, you’re on notice. I feel invested after spending countless hours keeping your overworked IIS servers afloat while Brian Alvey & Co. worked to create a better, LAMP-based WordSmith running behind a real load balancer, but lately it seems that quantity is winning out over quality. For the love of all that is holy, please stop blogging press releases. Six new Canon camera announcements are not worthy of four separate say-nothing posts. Dial the quality back up or soon we will only be seeing each other during Steve Jobs keynotes.
And all is right with the world again…
