Friday, August 12, 2011

RSS addiction is bad for your blog.

I clicked on the "Trends" section in Google Reader and found out how much blog material I read, and it's somewhat significant.

"From your 150 subscriptions, over the last 30 days you read 1,407 items, clicked 84 items, starred 2 items, shared 7 items, and emailed 0 items.
Since April 19, 2007 you have read a total of 21,935 items."

I have added and removed RSS feeds for various reasons and come up with a mix of daily reading that I'm absolutely addicted to. I realize now that having a Google Reader (and Google Listen) app on my phone has changed when/where/how I get my news. Since I switched from Outlook to Google Reader as my RSS feed aggregator, I have racked up some crazy stats. I used to write a lot, now I mostly read. My eyes are drawn to text because I'm wired that way.

A few of my favorites are Wikinews, Xenophilia, Whiteout Press News Feed, Stephen Kruiser, The New Editor, WizBang, Pat Dollard, Cato Institute, Reason Magazine, etc.

I have some favorite audio blogs, too. Between The Adam Corolla Show, Mike Church, Packet Pushers Podcast, and Downtown Soulville, I'm getting more audio than I can consume on my commutes.

And I've found myself (and much of the public debate) ignorant about economics in the past few years, so it's become an avidity of mine. My RSS feed reflects it: Professor Mark J. Perry's Blog for Economics and Finance, Cafe Hayek, Shadow Government Statistics - Commentary, Official Gerald Celente Blog, Mises Institute Daily, The Future of Capitalism, etc.

It's hard to wade through the boring, basic, or politically hyperbolic items to find the really interesting bits. Nothing beats a good beat down in the letters to the editor which economist Don Boudreaux posts, whether the editors receiving them print them or not. He wars against stupidity and avoids boring, basic, or politically hyperbolic, although he uses some hyperbole for humor's sake.

I get my tech news via RSS too.
TheInquirer.net Home, Hack A Day, CNet News, Schneier on Security, TechDirt.

If I want to just ogle the newest electronics, I have a folder full of RSS feeds just for that. Engadget, Gizmodo, Gajitz, The Gadgeteer, TechTree.com, etc.

The rest of the feeds are terribly specific to my job. StaticNAT, Cisco Security Advisories, Cisco IOS Hints and Tricks, AirWise Community Blog... you get the point.