RSS Feed Mayhem
Tonight, I was chatting with Corvida, and the topic of RSS feed overflow came up. We were both frustrated because there was so much new (potentially great) content being produced every day, that we couldn’t keep up!
A radical new plan was hatched that we both agreed to abide by, starting today. We would dump all our RSS feeds out of Google Reader and only add new feeds based on a set of rules:
- Keep feeds that track web site buzz (business-impacting).
- Allow feeds such as Disqus, Intense Debate or other low-volume feeds that are necessary for timely work decisions.
- Allow adding as many Google Reader Shared Items feeds as needed.
- Allow adding of aggregate, smart or keyword-filtered feeds such as RSSmeme FriendFeed Friends or TechMeme.
- Allow adding smaller site feeds. We set the upper limit for a small site to be 200 at the time of adding. This can be re-visited if the number is too small.
- Allowance process: If a site feed is so unique that it is not being covered by the processes defined above, an allowance will be made to subscribe to a direct feed to any site. The number of allowances can not exceed 10.
This plan will be in effect for 1 month. We will be dumping our current profiles on Toluu and will make sure it stays in sync with our new OPMLs.
In addition, I will make sure any feed I add gets sent as a tweet from Toluu and I will try to re-visit my feed list week during the month and explain any additions or changes.
I am completely open to suggestions for small, quality site feeds inside or outside the realm of social media as well as links to any google reader shared items feeds!
I’m looking forward to this excitement, both because it hopefully will make my RSS feed reading more manageable, but also because I am adding a huge social filter in to the mix. I am expecting the best reads to be more visible, while still keeping an eye on the little guy.