Luke Armour – Digital Marketing and Public Relations Observations, Commentary, Frivolity

I’ve been a huge fan of RSS for many, many years. I love it. I think the technology behind it has done more to revolutionize the web than most applications or file formats. For communicator, it has done wonders to allow us to monitor conversations. For people who know how to use it, it has brought the web directly to them – on their terms and at their pace. It’s given rise to podcasts, for one.

But, like many, I think I may have overdone it. I currently subscribe to 225 feeds, many of which update several times a day. Maybe that’s not a lot for you, but with my current work/life/commute balance, it’s a strain on my resources.

If you follow me on Twitter, you’ll know that I just zeroed out my RSS reader. I always feel terrible about doing that so I rarely do it. Consequently, I typically have thousands of unread messages lurking in there, eying me up, guilt ridding me. And I hate that.

And I’m not alone:

But I found that when I went in there at lunch today to read my feeds, I found it a relaxing and enjoyable experience. Sort of how I used to feel about it, when there were only a handful of bloggers worth following and the top most news sites worth keeping track of.

But before long my reader will probably say All Items (1000+) again and I’ll feel bad about myself again.

So what can one do about it?

No, that’s not rhetorical. Have you recently zeroed out your RSS reader? What have you done to get over the guilt?

How do you manage your feeds? How do you maintain a limit that doesn’t overwhelm you. Years later I’m still struggling with keeping track of everything I’ve collected. Is it time to get out the RSS scissors or do I just have to learn how to read faster and more often?

Thoughts?

Filed under: RSS, technology | 2 Comments »