If you’re anything like me you have an enormous list of feeds in Google Reader that you don’t keep on top of at all. From time to time you go in with a proverbial hatchet, and start clicking “mark all as read”.
Something clearly needs to be done - the only question is what. The main reason you are not reading all of the feeds is probably because one of the following is true;
The blog is no longer posted to
The content of the blog no longer interests you
In order to chop down the number of feeds I’m reading, I am doing the following;
Mark all unread posts as “read” RIGHT NOW.
Create a new folder in Google Reader called “Blogroll 2009” (as against “Blogroll” that already exists)
Move all blogs you love to Blogroll 2009 right away.
Each time somebody posts something interesting, move their blog from “Blogroll” to “Blogroll 2009”
In a few weeks time, remove the leftover blogs from Google Reader.
I guess the trick here is to not feel guilty about dropping blogs that you don’t like reading, or that don’t post very often any more. If people cannot be bothered to write, why should you be bothered to read? The only get-out is if the blog falls into the “blogs I love” category.
The next question is how to find interesting new blogs. Much easier to deal with…
Head over to Google Blog Search and type in subjects you are interested in.
Look at comments in your own blog, and go visit the addresses you do not recognise.
Visit friends blogs, and see if they have a blogroll - visit some of their favourites.
Join some new social networks - Tumblr, Posterous, LiveJournal… start reading like a mad thing, and see what you find.