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Declaring RSS Bankruptcy
By Mark Evans | April 11, 2008
RSS is fantastic tool for delivering content to you rather than you having to chase it all the place.
As more content producers get hip to the wonders of RSS, subscribing to RSS feeds is becoming increasingly easy. Click, Subscribe, Done. This concept of “oversubscription” is something ReadWriteWeb’s Marshall Kirkpatrick enthusiastically encourages.
The dark side of RSS-made-easy is that before you know it, your RSS reader is chock-a-block with all kinds of great feeds with each one featuring all kinds of great content. And as much as you try to keep up with the RSS subscriptions you’ve selected, it becomes impossible after awhile because it keeps coming at your day after day.
Today, I finally decided to declare RSS Bankruptcy. It finally got to the point where I accepted the reality that there was no way I was ever going to catch up on all those posts that had sadly gone unread.
The blog that broke the camel’s back was looking at Lifehacker, a blog that I really like and try to read on a regular basis. Upon realizing there were 422 unread posts, I conceded RSS defeat. For the next few days, “Mark all as read” will be getting a lot of action as I wave the white flag.
Part of the problem is that many of the blogs that I’ve been reading for awhile (e.g. Mashable, TechCrunch, GigaOm, ReadWriteWeb, etc.) having turned into publishing entities as opposed to one-man shows. Mashable, for example, pumped out a staggering 18 posts today. It’s all good stuff but there’s so much to read, it’s a challenge to read any at all.
Perhaps the solution is slashing the number of RSS feeds to a more manageable total - say 50 - as opposed to clicking on any old RSS button. It’s probably time to become more discerning and realistic. Perhaps the rule of thumb is if you haven’t read a blog in the RSS reader in a month, out it goes to the unsubscribe dump.
Of course, the problem is there’s so much great content being created. Some of my favorite blogs are written by people who I didn’t know existed a few months such as Louis Gray and She Geeks.
Having just declared RSS Bankruptcy, it’s going to be a struggle to not let it happen again. But now it is the time for will power and discipline. Wish me luck!
Just a thought: Maybe Twitter should become my RSS reader given I follow many of the bloggers I like, and there’s always good content being highlighted. Online Media Cultist was thinking along the same lines recently.
Update:Webomatica has an interesting post about taking a different approach to blogging after getting tired of the pressure involved to produce. For many bloggers, there’s a lot of food for thought in it.
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