Google Reader now makes recommendations and, more importantly, relays some data on how many posts occur on those unsubscribed to blogs per week (down to the tenths, btw.) And it’s that last part that gives me pause. I wonder if there is a way to analyze the blogs that I am currently subscribed to in terms of posts per week. Since I’m now in Prius mode and all about data driven decision making (for certain things) I started wondering if there is a pattern to my subscriptions. A very quick, unscientific, first impression look through my feeds shows that the vast majority of them return about 5 posts a week and that very, very few have more than 7-8.
And so here is the thing. On my “Google Reader Recommended List” were a couple of widely read edubloggers that I’m not subscribed to, and when I looked at the average number of posts per week data, I winced: 16.4 and 14.8 respectively. Those numbers absolutely preclude me from subscribing. It’s too much. I’m figuring that the best of those blogs will be filtered by other bloggers who I am subscribed to, and in practice, that’s precisely what happens. (There were links to both of those blogs that came through my reader this morning.)
Which begs the further question that Stephen Downes raised a while ago and that continues to niggle at my thinking: Should we approach all of this more toward reading blogs (and the people that write them) or reading ideas, no matter where they come from? It’s not totally an either or, I know. And there are nuances and complexities to both. But I’m starting to toy with the idea of taking most of the names out of my aggregator and moving toward tracking concepts and tags. What kind of effect do you think that would have? (I have some ideas that I’ll chuck into the comments.)
This all coming on the heels of closing out the first month in three years where I posted fewer than 10 times to my blog. Hmmm…
Technorati Tags: blogging, rss, googlereader
I am with you, in fact I am spend so much time reading others (like now) that I have not be very diligent at posting to my own blog. I have good intentions, but that seems to be as far as I get most weeks, good intentions. And Twitter is truly becoming a side trip most days. I seem to be absorbed in checking out the resources of folks I follow and trying to learn them and then decide if they are something I need to expose my pre-service teachers to in class. Just feeling a bit overwhelmed by all of it at the end of the semester.
Thanks for the recommender tip, though it was not exactly obvious where it was inside GR.
My feed reading has gotten less religious and regular than years back, but is still essential. The difference now is the mode of browsing; before I would go from feed to feed, and check one person’s stream. Now I use GR to browse by my folder tags, so its more of a stream of multiple authors.
@alan Doh! Never thought of that, even though it’s been right there all of the time. Thanks.
I wrote about this topic a month or so ago, however, not as eloquently as you. 🙂
I’ve been filtering out many of blogs that I do not read and slowly adding tag and search feeds that are relevant to what I am doing. So far, so good.
Thanks for affirming I’m not crazy.
“I wonder if there is a way to analyze the blogs that I am currently subscribed to in terms of posts per week.”
Have you seen the “trends” section of Google Reader? Find it near the upper left of the reader page. It provides “reading trends” for the number and percentage of items you have read for up to your top 40 feeds. It also provides “subscription trends” which are the number of posts per day (to the tenths) and the percentage of those you have read for up to the top 40 most active of your subscriptions.
A few more notes…
The trends page also provides some charts for the number of items you have read for each of the last thirty days, what time of day they were read, and which day of the week.
Alan’s method of reading folders not feeds has been working well for me for a while now. I’ve also created a folder/tag named “zxtra” where I put some of those feeds with a high number of posts per day. Most of the time I just end up marking all items as read without even looking at them, but occasionally I’ll flip through them rapidly to get an idea what they are covering. The “zxtra” title is not so important now that Google Reader allows you to drag feeds and folders in whatever order you want, but before (with the strict alphabetizing) it kept the folder at the bottom.
This is exactly the mode that I find myself in lately. I have been far too busy in class in our collaboration with LA, with traveling 4 weeks in a row, and now with report cards / interviews to post much to my blog lately. It also doesnt help that my internet service at home has been up and down for several weeks now which is where I usually do my writing. Too many competing priorities.
Also, if you click on Discover (next to Add Subscription on the Home page, or on the Browse tab when looking at recommendations), you can search for feeds. When the search comes up, it tells you the average posts per week. Not very efficient for lots of feeds, but works if you just want to know about a couple.
Hey Will, I like this idea of subscribing to ideas rather than people. After all, it’s the constant ebb and flow and evolving nature of new ideas about teaching and learning that first drew me to blogging.
But the thought occurred to me: If we subscribe to a set of ideas, then how do we tap in to new ideas as they emerge?
Not to throw cold water on this practice before it’s had a chance at exploring life in the light for while but if you do go ahead and do this I’d be fascinated to hear about your experience vis a vis being exposed to new ideas this way rather the the “old” way.
Cheers!
Read this post from Jason Kottke. He does a good job explaining his system for grouping and reading feeds.
FYI…I became aware of your blog and read this post as a result of Google Reader’s recommendations. I have added your feed to my Reader.