DISQUS

Louis Gray · 10 months ago

Post by Michael Fruchter: http://www.friendfeed.com/fruchter

smilbandit · 10 months ago

Here's how I did something about my RSS overload, http://tubejumper.com. Of course not everyone has the time or ability to build their own rss reader but thought i'd share.

mfruchter · 10 months ago

Smilbandit,

That's very interesting. Is there a way you can hook into the Google Reader API to enable sharing with tubejumper?

smilbandit · 10 months ago

I've been working with it but so far sharing doesn't work correctly yet, and I've been kinda holding off for an official reader api. With the resent uncertainty of the google products and how much development reader may or may not get, I think i'm going to just go with plan b. In plan b I'll just setup a second wordpress blog or use tumblr and use the xmlrpc interface to create a share feed.

Kol Tregaskes · 10 months ago

A quick suggestion also. To cut out the noise, use PostRank: (http://www.postrank.com/). Feed in your OPML from GReader into PostRank, select all "great" posts" and export the OPML and put that into GReader. Then you'll get all your favourite feeds but only the most popular posts from each. It's not an exact science but it helps and I find it useful if you are catching up with the news and only want to see the highlights from the few days or week(s).

Let's hope Google keep GReader. ;-)

mfruchter · 10 months ago

Kol,

That's a good tip. I need to check out postrank.com. I messed around with it for a few minutes some time ago. According to Bret Taylor in this thread Google Reader is here to stay :)

http://friendfeed.com/e/68b39802-f246-d600-06a9...

Thanks,

Mike

Bill Sodeman · 10 months ago

I've been doing RSS account purge, using some of the tips in this article.

Edwin Khodabakchian · 10 months ago

Michael: are you a firefox user? Have you tried the latest version of feedly? In theory, the more sources you subscribe too and the more unread items you have, the better the topic detection and recommendations. The only thing you really need to do is go to the dashboard and mark your favorite sources. The latest version of feedly is available at http://www.feedly.com Best wishes for 2009

mfruchter · 10 months ago

Edwin,

I do use FireFox. I will admit I have not tried feedly since you launched the beta. Phil Glockner and a few other Friends speak very highly of it though. They mention it's come a long way. I would be glad too give it a second shot and report back my findings :)

Thanks,

Mike

Edwin Khodabakchian · 10 months ago

If you do and have suggestions on how to improve it, please let us know and we will integrate it into our roadmap: http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=po646v7U... thank you. -Edwin

Roundpeg · 10 months ago

Great suggestions. Every now and then I just give my self permission to mark as read large groups of content. If I find myself doing that on a regualr basis with one particular feed, I delete that feed. i control my reader, it does not control me..

mfruchter · 10 months ago

Lorraine,

I love this line "i control my reader, it does not control me.."

Thanks for the comment. Also a big thank you for re tweets :-)

Mike

Tim G · 10 months ago

I like to think of RSS as a newspaper.

I don't feel compelled to read every single article in a newspaper, i just scan headlines and read anything of interest.

Once I am done I put the newspaper (and all it;s articles) into the recycling. That's sort of the equivalent of pressing "mark all as read".

stonyeagle · 10 months ago

Would love to have an invite to Toluu. Stonyeagle@gmail.com. Always looking for other ways to discover new feeds. Thanks again for a very insightful article.

Louis Gray · 10 months ago

A Toluu invite should be in your e-mail box. Enjoy! Anybody who wants
one, gets one... today.

calebelston · 10 months ago

Really solid advice Mike. RSS is certainly an amazingly powerful tool to have information flow to you. It can be very easy to get overwhelmed because RSS readers are built like email clients, with their constant unread nagging you. Your tips to improve GR are great.

Plus thanks for the Toluu love. We think we can help people discover new and interesting high quality feeds based on their interests and the interests of their friends.

Cheers,
Caleb
Toluu

mfruchter · 10 months ago

Caleb,

You are very welcome. As you know it's been one my favorite applications since discovering it on louisgray.com some time ago. Toluu and Google Reader go hand in hand for me. The service has come a long way, and I'm excited to see the direction it's going in for 2009.

Have a great weekend,

Mike

Chris Charabaruk · 10 months ago

Sometimes, if I have more than a hundred unread articles, I'll just wipe out entire categories of them. That's the nice thing with Google Reader: Subscription categories can be quickly marked as read. Of course, there's always the risk of missing something good when I do this, but thanks to FriendFeed activity I can still find the cream of the unread-but-marked-as-such crop.

James Fridley · 10 months ago

Hot tip!! Greasemonkey + "Google Reader Filter" + "Google Reader - Mark until current read" = large reduction in stress.!!!! I currently go through around 3000 articles a day from multiple sources meaning that not only do I get alot of articles, I get alot of the same articles. This mix really helps. I find it funny that I am so addicted to RSS hat I come to friendfeed to relax...

Jaemi K · 10 months ago

Wow, timing. Just today i was saying I need to take my Reader back. I'd love a Tuluu invite. jaemik@gmail.com

Louis Gray · 10 months ago

Jaemi, you should have an invite to Toluu on its way. Thanks for your
comments and visit.

EricFriedman · 10 months ago

Hey Louis,

I wrote about how to tame your RSS feeds by organizing them into Tiers - I used Google Reader but you could do the same with any RSS reader if you wanted.
http://www.marketing.fm/2009/01/11/prioritizing...

iSteeve · 10 months ago

I'd enjoy an invite also. Fine article. Using Greader a lot, use folders, still needs an overhaul :-)

dr.pribut@gmail.com

Thanks!

Louis Gray · 10 months ago

A Toluu invite is on its way.

jraines · 10 months ago

Not sure how many people would consider this a help, but I just created an app to compress your feeds into daily summaries. So if Feed X has 17 items a day, subscribe to the FeedStomper feed and you get one feed item with those 17 items in it. Still very much in beta!

www.FeedStomper.com

mikepk · 10 months ago

http://friendfeed.com/e/fd878795-ecd4-a3c4-12c0...

Mona N. · 10 months ago

Shameless self promotion,mikepk! Shameless! ;)

mikepk · 10 months ago

Mona, I do actually feel guilty about talking about our product in these contexts (I've drunk the koolaid :) ). But in this case it's something I feel passionate about. When people complain about the anxiety they feel on this issue I tell them find a "river of news" that works for them. Read/unread is not the right way to deal with reading hundreds or even thousands of feeds. The fact people complain means there's something fundamentally broken with the model.

mikepk · 10 months ago

I will continue to say it (and be ignored). Read/unread is the wrong way to deal with any reasonable volume of feeds. http://mikepk.com/2009/01/rss-bankrupt-were-in-... Feed readers were designed to emulate email programs, which is not the way you should be reading news.

mfruchter · 10 months ago

Mike,

Thanks for the comment. I left a follow up comment on your blog.

mikepk · 10 months ago

Saw it, thanks! I sometimes feel like the "crazy person in the wilderness" if you know what I mean. Don't worry too much about reviewing Grazr. I wasn't trying to push it (too hard). We still haven't addressed all of the issues Scoble smacked us down for a few months ago. The core issue is, what problem is all this tech trying to solve? We still haven't worked out exactly what all the technology in Grazr wants to be, and it can lead to a bit of a scattershot feel. We're using a lot of tech we built for Grazr to create more targeted products with more immediate revenue potential. I think we might have been a bit too early and I would like to come back to Grazr at some point and spend some dev time on it but only time will tell.

Frank Bradley · 10 months ago

nice post - very helpful. i'd love a Tuluu invite. fbradley@gmail.com

mfruchter · 10 months ago

Frank,

Invite has been sent.

Sean McBride · 10 months ago

I subscribe to about 1,000 feeds in Google Reader (including Friendfeed feeds), and don't feel the slightest stress or pressure about keeping up. I prioritize the most important 30 feeds in folders by groups of ten, read whatever items time comfortably permits, and ignore the rest. Information overload is a product of lack of prioritization. Of course, if you don't know your own priorities, you are in trouble on the Internet. (I discovered this item in my GR feed for FFHolic Most Discussed.)

Shevonne · 10 months ago

@Sean Exactly. I do the same.

sofarsoshawn · 10 months ago

LOL love this entry! & am in the same place w/ Sean&Shevonne ~ there's no exam!

timhoeck · 10 months ago

Giving up an RSS reader is a horrible idea. It's like saying you are no longer going to watch the news, you are just going to rely on friends to tell you what happened. How do you know they are going to give you the info you are looking for? However, I have also finally convinced myself that I do not need to read EVERY article in reader.. just read until you don't want to read anymore - when your done, MARK ALL AS READ.

Sarah Stambler · 10 months ago

I'd like an invite to Toluu - nl@e-tactics.com

Louis Gray · 10 months ago

Sarah, your Toluu invite is on its way.

funkyboy · 10 months ago

"An application that was built to discover and distribute information is a blessing, not our enemy. We see the unread count of 1,000+ items, and automatically anxiety kicks in."

So true Michael!
It is a while that I am thinking of an "intelligent" client to read rss. The first functionality is "avoid showing duplicate entries" and the second "avoid showing similar items".

Thanks for your post. It is a motivation to the validity of my project.
Now I just need to find some time to start it and implement it, but that's another story :)

courane01 · 10 months ago

Toluu looks really handy. I subscribe to nearly as many feeds, and use it primarily to skim headlines. Some sites I read constantly, while many I just browse if the title sparks interest. Most I simply delete. Power reading. Oh - invites.... user name listed here @gmail.com. (hopeful)

Louis Gray · 10 months ago

Courane, your Toluu invite is on its way.

courane01 · 10 months ago

Thanks Louis! ~Courtney

Stuart Miniman · 10 months ago

+1 and thanks for the pointer to keyboard shortcuts in the article (so few people spend the time to learn to utilize functionality in tools anymore)

Craig · 10 months ago

The folders is key to staying organized. I have gotten lazy with them but am trying to do a better job at separating blogs for work, industry related, sports and well just fun ones.

Jennifer Van Grove · 10 months ago

Hey Mike, great piece...especially since I do feel overwhelmed by my feed reader. Of course I'm disappointed about your Mashable remarks...hope you give us a second chance at some point...and you know where to find me (FF or Twitter) if you want to chat in more detail. I take my work pretty seriously, so I'm always looking for feedback and ways to improve.

mfruchter · 10 months ago

Jennifer,

As you know, I considered you and still do way above the cut compared to other bloggers in the game. If I recall I even called you "prominent". My opinion of you has never changed. My opinion is since the staff cleansing at Mashable in December, the caliber and quality started to go down hill. This is not a slant against you, you are just doing your job. I still do find some quality gems at Mashable, but it's been rare lately and it's often from guest posters.

Mike

jinkhet · 10 months ago

I had one other suggestion - its "tool dependent," but I've found it helpful. With NetNewsWire, I've been able to set up which feeds are updated on multiple devices: I have some feeds that appear only on the iphone client (the ones with short, easy to read articles I can check out on the bus); others only appear on my work client (usually tech. related), and still others are for my MBP (the other million feeds).

Simon · 10 months ago

Some really useful thoughts there. Although I'm not sure that I'm bothered enough by the 1000+ count to bother using the "hide feed count" feature. I have all my feeds in topical folders loosely divided between work-related and personal interest. I never check all my unread feeds at one go, but check a different folder every day, usually leaving the personal ones for free time in weekends. This way my count is permanently over 1000+, but I'm getting through the material without feeling overloaded.

lechtitseb · 10 months ago

Hi!

I've been using Google Reader for a very long time now, I also have over 700 feeds on my list. So far, I'm very happy with it, I've been using the folders to sort my feeds by categories and I also have a special "things that matter" folder where I keep those few feeds I really want to follow closely.

I also use the read it later firefox extension (http://www.ideashower.com/ideas/launched/read-i...) which has an integration with google reader, allowing you to easily filter out those posts very few people have read, which can help identify the most important ones.

In my spare time, I started developing an unofficial api for google reader in Java (since they didn't release an official one yet), for those interested: http://code.google.com/p/greader-unofficial/

Thanks again for the post and happy google reading to everyone :)

BA · 10 months ago

Great post. RSS oOverload is why I created nobosh.com, to filter out the bosh (non-sense). I didn't complain, I did something about it.

My Bloglines account had over 500+ RSS subscriptions which included many top tech blogs that covered the exact same story a 100 times over. It was a waste of my time. I wanted and intelligent aggregator, hence nobosh.

BA
bahellman@nobosh.com
http://nobosh.com

WE · 10 months ago

hi, would love to take up your offer to have a go at Toluu.

Website

Original page

Subscribe

Community

Top Commenters

Popular Threads

louisgray.com: louisgray.com: RSS Overload: Don't Complain, Do Something About It