So, I’m a geek. I:
- Use RSS. A lot.
- I know what PubSubHubBub is.
- I know how to use Posterous.
- I can tell you things about Google, the interwebs, Web 2.0, and computers that you absolutely don’t care about.
- Do a lot of other geeky things that you probably don’t understand. Like read XKCD. And I get the hover over punchlines.
Needless to say, being this plugged in is overwhelming. So I’ve started to ween myself from my technology addiction. Now, I’m not quitting blogging or going to stop being a geek. It’d be too hard to disappoint my 2 readers. (Love you Mom! Hell, who am I kidding, mom doesn’t use RSS.) Here’s what I did to free my life a bit.
First, I went into Google Reader and deleted about 1400 feeds. I know that sounds like a lot, but most of them were for Craigslist.org site searches. I used a site called Crazedlist.org to create a OPML file of searches, then edited the file to convert it to feeds, not searches, and then imported to Reader. That was probably 1300 of the feeds. The other ones I deleted because, according to Google Reader, I don’t read them. Now, I’m taking a firm stance on new feeds. If a feed republishes or syndicates feeds from other sites, I delete it. Now, for breaking news, that’s alright. I understand folks want to be the first to publish. I get it. But, and this is especially true in my Web 2.0 feeds, I notice about a day or two lag between the first mention of a story and the time someone else republishes the same story. If the second publisher contributes something amazing to the article, that’s great, I don’t delete. If the post is a simple “I found this great article at LifeHacker.org” then that’s ok too, because it’s clear that you’re sending traffic to an article you like. However, if you are unoriginal and just rehash the existing article, you’re done. I’ve been guilty of this before, so it’s not a one strike and you’re out thing, but if you have a pattern of republishing content, it’s not going to work out.
Last night, I spent two hours filtering through my Gmail trash folder. I unsubscribed to 42 email lists. And that’s just based on emails I’ve received since the beginning of November.
I was worried that I’d feel left out. Here’s the amazing news. Nothing important has happened since I deleted all this noise from my email account and Google Reader. Nothing. Period.
Coming soon: a Rant against professional internet marketers and bloggers. Stay tuned.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
1400 feeds and 42 email lists? wow! Not bad!
That is pretty long list that you had to unsubscribe. I guess how long it must have taken you to validate which are essential posts and which are not, for you won’t delete them just like that .