Google Reader and Declaring RSS Bankruptcy
Over the past few months my RSS feed reader of choice, Google Reader, has officially gone into meltdown. Well not the application itself, but more so my ability to manage the 412 blog subscriptions that I have “acquired” over time.
This is not the first time this has happened either. It was only about 6 months ago that the number of sites I was subscribing to crept up to a whopping 564. Mental chaos ensued, I then slowly peeled that number back to the 412 it is was today.
Sometimes you can simply overdo it and subscribe to too many blogs. I am not sure how many feeds is enough for one person, but if you fire up Google Reader and see All items 1000+ in the top left hand corner every morning, then maybe that is just Google’s way of telling you that you need to cut back a bit.
Information overload was taking hold of me, so drastic action needed to be taken. Today, I finally decided to bite the bullet and have declared RSS bankruptcy.
All of my RSS subscriptions have officially been terminated.
So to some of my favourite blogs – David Airey, Design Informer, The Design Cubicle, Smashing Magazine, Little Box of Ideas, ImJustCreative, Problogger, Mashable, and many more – sorry guys, as awesome as you are, you now have one less subscriber.
Liberate Yourself
The great thing about RSS bankruptcy is that is allows you to start over with a completely clean slate. Which to tell you the truth, feels very liberating.
I could possibly be the first blogger ever to suggest that readers rip into their feed reader and start unsubscribing from blogs. Increasing subscriber count is one of the primary objectives of most bloggers after all. But here is the thing, if a reader is unable to keep up with the sheer number of blogs they subscribe to, I know that it is fairly unlikely that they will ever get around to reading one of my posts anyway.
As much as bloggers value their subscriber count, a subscriber that never reads your posts may as well not be subscribing at all.
So as a reader of blogs, what is the best way to manage the feeds you subscribe to? To be honest, I am still not sure. There are a ton of advanced tips on how to use Google Reader effectively, but at the end of the day if you are subscribing to too many blogs it simply doesn’t work anymore.
I think the only way forward is to be more selective about the blogs I subscribe to. Also, as a subscriber if I start to feel as though a blog is not adding enough value on either a personal or professional level, then I will free myself and get rid of it.
If you have too many subscriptions, I suggest that you do the same.
What goes through you mind when deciding whether or not you will subscribe to a blog? Do you ever get overwhelmed by the number of your feeds and how do you deal with it?
P.S. To the blogs I mentioned above, you are now back in my subscription list 😉
Dangerous Blogger RSS Image Credit