Ignoring the "A-List" by Optimizing Your Blog Reading

RE: Ignoring the "A-List" by Optimizing Your Blog Reading

kpako@yahoo.com (Dare Obasanjo) — Wed, 28 Apr 2004 05:59:00 GMT

Josh,
Wow, I'm glad RSS Bandit can handle 1000 blogs for you. I've never tested with over 200. With that kind of information overload you really do need intelligent filtering. Search folders were the first step, I need to experiment with other approaches.

re: Ignoring the "A-List" by Optimizing Your Blog Reading

Neil Cowburn — Wed, 28 Apr 2004 09:23:00 GMT

I'm subscribed to Scoble's RSS feed, but I rarely read anything he writes anymore. Why? Because it doesn't interest me. I've developed a technique whereby I scan the subject headers and if anything catches my eye, I'll stop and read it. This is how I got here, actually. I use Newsgator with Outlook 2003. This enables me to create a search folder for all unread RSS items and this enables me to quickly scan all my feeds. It certainly helps me separate the wheat from the chaff.

re: Ignoring the "A-List" by Optimizing Your Blog Reading

Paul Edwards — Wed, 28 Apr 2004 10:01:00 GMT

Nice post, very true though. I agree with Neil, I'm not subscribed to Scoble anymore for the same reason. I use SHarpReader to read them all and as with Neil, the subject is an important part, as this is what gets me to read them.

re: Ignoring the "A-List" by Optimizing Your Blog Reading

Scott Galloway — Wed, 28 Apr 2004 10:12:00 GMT

I tend to go through phases as to what blogs I read, I am still subscribed to Scobelizer but very rarely read it any more, same with most blogs really, there's stilla few I regularly peruse, the ASP.NET weblogs is my most favoured at the moment it's just where I get the most useful information - apart from that, not many. I used to read about 150-200 blogs every day but I have seriously trimmed that (been trimming today, Neopoleon has just gone - just complaints now and no real substance over there).

re: Ignoring the "A-List" by Optimizing Your Blog Reading

Jeff — Wed, 28 Apr 2004 13:54:00 GMT

Call Channel9 "stupid" and you'll get all kinds of attention. Good and bad. ;)

re: Ignoring the "A-List" by Optimizing Your Blog Reading

jledgard — Wed, 28 Apr 2004 17:19:00 GMT

Dare: I'm cheating a bit since I count blogs.msdn.com as ~400 and the non-ms weblogs.asp.net feed as another 300. But I do get all of them read every day. The rest are actual blog feeds though. I have noticed, however, that the UI is starting to creek at the seems and seems to get pretty slow switching between feeds. It's another reason I just stick to the search folders.

re: Ignoring the "A-List" by Optimizing Your Blog Reading

jledgard — Wed, 28 Apr 2004 17:22:00 GMT

Neil: Sounds familiar.

Paul: I was using sharpreader, but at the time it seemed they had some severe memory usage issues and I'd find it eating up all my available memory if I left it open.

Scott: This has really been a good experiment for me. I'm planning, now that I've had a few weeks of sampling, to trim my list down.

Jeff: I don't believe I'm calling channel9 stupid. I have a couple of minor issues with the site, but overall I think the content coming out of it has been great. The Video clips are, IMO better than what MSDN TV does since they feel less scripted. Also Scoble has done a great job hunting down people to highlight through the videos.

re: Ignoring the "A-List" by Optimizing Your Blog Reading

Jeff Sandquist — Wed, 28 Apr 2004 17:42:00 GMT

Good feedback on the crew being so prominent on Channel 9. We've flipped the online and crew sections on the homepage.

We're working on a design refresh that will make better use of screen real estate and hope to have design ideas up soon.

-Jeff
http://channel9.msdn.com

re: Ignoring the "A-List" by Optimizing Your Blog Reading

jledgard — Wed, 28 Apr 2004 17:51:00 GMT

Wow, ask and you shall receive. That's the kind of turnaround that creates thrilled customers.

re: Ignoring the "A-List" by Optimizing Your Blog Reading

DarthPedro — Thu, 29 Apr 2004 01:30:00 GMT

Cool, good post. I was worried from the title, not sure what this was going to be about. But, I agree. I use RSS Bandit too, and it really helps me filter through a lot of feeds to get at the content that interests me.

re: Ignoring the "A-List" by Optimizing Your Blog Reading

josh ledgard — Thu, 29 Apr 2004 02:53:00 GMT

I admit the title is a bit misleading. But aren't all titles? :-)

re: Ignoring the "A-List" by Optimizing Your Blog Reading

Adam Kinney — Thu, 29 Apr 2004 03:29:00 GMT

Agreed, no way I could read all the blogs I do without an aggregator. And yes the subject line of a blog has become just as important to me as the subject line of an email from an address I don't recognize. The one-liner filter method.

P.S.
Jeff "Just Jeff" was referring to a post of his where he called channel 9 stupid, I don't he meant you were saying that.

re: Ignoring the "A-List" by Optimizing Your Blog Reading

jledgard — Thu, 29 Apr 2004 03:46:00 GMT

I tend to get the subject and a breif look at the content for keywords.

Take Outs for 28 April 2004

Enjoy Every Sandwich — Thu, 29 Apr 2004 07:27:00 GMT

Take Outs for 28 April 2004

Take Outs for 3 May 2004

Enjoy Every Sandwich — Tue, 04 May 2004 07:39:00 GMT

Take Outs for 3 May 2004

re: Ignoring the "A-List" by Optimizing Your Blog Reading

Ryan Farley — Wed, 12 May 2004 22:31:00 GMT

Josh,

Great post. I've been thinking about this ever since I read the post a week so ago when I first read it. I waste a lot of time reading stuff - just because it is something I'm subscribed to or from someone I like. When you do that you loose the whole benefit that RSS brings - which is to get just the info you want delivered right to you without needing to go looking for it.

re: Ignoring the "A-List" by Optimizing Your Blog Reading

jledgard — Wed, 12 May 2004 23:09:00 GMT

Thanks for the feedback Ryan!