A quick post over at Web Worker Daily asks are we entering a Post-Reader era?
I think for me, the answer is yes. Since September of last year, I've been struggling with my Google Reader. Every time I look up, my unread count is over 1000 posts. I just can't keep up. I subscribe to something like 250 feeds, and some of them are inactive, but the active ones are too much for me. Lately, as I go through my feeds, I've been discarding the ones I now find annoying. Cutting back.
My Twitter use supplanted my lack of feed reading, because I figured if it were that groundbreaking, one or a few of the people I follow would tweet about it, with links. For the most part, that's been helping me stay somewhat aware of what's been going on in the e-streets. The new problem is I am trying to cut back on my Twitter use. I have reached a plateau. I don't want to follow anymore people. I feel detached from people on twitter I felt more attached to. I keep my Twhirl on, but I don't say much, just watch the tweets go by.
Along the same lines: I can't stand all this aggregated information of all my friends! Friendfeed is cool and all, if you have 4 friends. Anything over 4 people is just out of control. Or perhaps, my actual real life friends need to join the service for me to care. I know there are filters. I know there is additional commentary. Whatever. All these sites are beginning to drive me insane.
A year ago I would have sworn by RSS and activity aggregation, because it felt like it made things so simple and saved me *so* much time. Today, I can't stand this mess. I am overloaded with information, now I don't care. Now I visit sites manually again. Now I need something to help me save time on my saving time.
Maybe I'm just grumpy because I'm in the middle of reading my feeds right now.
Hmph.
I think for me, the answer is yes. Since September of last year, I've been struggling with my Google Reader. Every time I look up, my unread count is over 1000 posts. I just can't keep up. I subscribe to something like 250 feeds, and some of them are inactive, but the active ones are too much for me. Lately, as I go through my feeds, I've been discarding the ones I now find annoying. Cutting back.
My Twitter use supplanted my lack of feed reading, because I figured if it were that groundbreaking, one or a few of the people I follow would tweet about it, with links. For the most part, that's been helping me stay somewhat aware of what's been going on in the e-streets. The new problem is I am trying to cut back on my Twitter use. I have reached a plateau. I don't want to follow anymore people. I feel detached from people on twitter I felt more attached to. I keep my Twhirl on, but I don't say much, just watch the tweets go by.
Along the same lines: I can't stand all this aggregated information of all my friends! Friendfeed is cool and all, if you have 4 friends. Anything over 4 people is just out of control. Or perhaps, my actual real life friends need to join the service for me to care. I know there are filters. I know there is additional commentary. Whatever. All these sites are beginning to drive me insane.
A year ago I would have sworn by RSS and activity aggregation, because it felt like it made things so simple and saved me *so* much time. Today, I can't stand this mess. I am overloaded with information, now I don't care. Now I visit sites manually again. Now I need something to help me save time on my saving time.
Maybe I'm just grumpy because I'm in the middle of reading my feeds right now.
Hmph.
It's funny, I was just thinking the same thing yesterday. I just can't keep up. I have all these feeds in my reader but i find myself marking them all as read right away just to get it over with. It has become a chore to keep up. The only ones i take the time to look at are the feeds from my friends. Tech blogs, fashion blogs, fffound, nytimes, music, all that stuff is just too much.
True that. Whenever I tell people I read a gang of blogs, and then they ask me which blogs are my must reads, I tell them, "my friends' blogs." Those are always my priority feeds to read through, everyone else can wait, if they're lucky.
Do you know I set up google reader last year and never ever used it and it is unbelievable all the junk that is in there.
Manual is the way for me. Too much information honestly has made me a little looney. I am trying to cut back!!
Glad to know I am NOT alone! ;)