Dave Burke : Freelance .NET Web Developer specializing in Online Communities

Pruning the feed tree again

It's time once again to prune the RSS vine and eliminate some noise in my life.  I have a couple of categories I stay current with every day, but several have been piling up, which makes it easy to determine whether feeds in those backlogged categories stay on the tree.  I just scrolled through the last 78 post subjects for the last two months of a certain developer's feed and didn't find a single item I wanted to read or felt that I needed to read.  Delete.

Ken Robertson said something interesting the other night, how he avoids bloggers who post too much.  Ken deleted Scoble and a few other active blogs based on post volume, and he's absolutely right that this is an accurate measure of a blog's value.  If you have to scroll through 50 posts on a regular basis to find one post that's of personal worth you have to weigh the time investment spent scrolling through the other 49 posts.

Several inactive feeds are being lopped-off, too, whether they're in my Buds category or any other, and whether the bloggers are friends in the real world or not.  A blog that isn't updated in three months isn't a blog, it's a dead feed.  Delete.

Back to pruning.

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Posted on 9/17/2006 9:14:44 PM by Dave Burke
Categories: Everyday
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Comments (8) -

9/17/2006 11:09:45 PM Permalink

I feel for you Dave.  I recently went through my feed tree and cut out the bulk of the .Net blogs - but there were some I just couldn't trim.  Mostly people I'd had decent conversation with in the past and wanted to stay in touch, and also those who have great senses of humour.  You my friend, fell in to both categories.  It's interesting though - I find blinding clicking through your CS posts (time constraints - knowing more about CS isn't useful for me now), but I always stop to read "off-topic" ones like this.  Smile  There's a few others in the .Net world (including numerous local guys) who I can't disconnect from.  

Tim Haines |

9/18/2006 5:29:47 AM Permalink

That's a very good point, Tim.  I panicked there for a second thinking I was one of the feeds you snipped!  You're right about the bulk of my blog being about CS when I know it isn't useful for you and other long-time readers in the hood.  I should maybe offer an "everything-but-CS" feed that is Community Server free.  I'm also wrestling with how to blog about running, which I've been doing for a couple of months now and concluded I'm going to create a separate blog, either here or a separate site.  Thanks for your thoughts on this.  Nothing like a few motivator points from The Hustler.

daveburke |

9/18/2006 7:56:57 PM Permalink

Dave, if you could always let me know which blogs you want to read and I could list anything I find interesting in mine ... if you still read mine that is.  I've recently been trying to find more quality blogs, but not really looking at getting rid of anything yet.  I'm not really sure how long I'm going to keep spending an hour a day just sorting out the ones I want to read, but right now I'm still doing it ... I keep thinking about putting a sub title on my interesting finds like "I waste my time so you don't have to" Smile

Jason Haley |

9/18/2006 8:13:10 PM Permalink

Are you kidding, Jason?  I read Interesting Finds every day!  I never miss it!

Thanks for your comment.  You seem to be adding more and more new sources all the time to your Finds.  It shows.  I'm amazed it still only takes you an hour.  Keep up the great work, my friend.  

Hey, I love your subtitle, even though it's completely erroneous.

daveburke |

9/18/2006 8:29:06 PM Permalink

Yeah, Interesting Finds rocks. I do the dance of joy every time my blog gets a link in it. Smile

daveburke |

9/18/2006 8:34:50 PM Permalink

I know, Mab.  Me, too.  I've gone through a really REALLY long dry spell though.  Haven't made The Finds for as long as I can remember.  Jason really makes us work for it.

daveburke |

9/18/2006 10:29:41 PM Permalink

Oh, wait!  I'm in The Finds today!  Excuse me, gotta go and do the dance of joy now.  WOO-HOO!

daveburke |

9/19/2006 7:27:29 AM Permalink

You guys crack me up;)   Thanks for keeping on the list and have fun in Dallas.

Jason Haley |


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