Most of my posts are blatant advertorials for ITDatabase. Typically they start off with some sort of backhanded compliment for an existing research product (or free option) and then unapologetically jump into shameless promotion of our product.
Today I applaud RSS, but it is not backhanded. It’s totally sincere.
My only criticism of RSS is really more a criticism of myself – and my inability to keep up with the volume of content that is being dumped into my RSS reader.
I finally caved and bought a MacBook Pro. Immediately I started diligently subscribing to RSS feeds (w/ in Mac’s mail client) for all of the publications / blogs / podcasts that I’m interested in. I had the best intentions of reading them all every day – or at the very least, scanning the headlines. I swore that this time I’d really read them all.
But here I am, a month later, and I’ve got unread feeds stacked up by the hundreds. 300+ in my TechCrunch folder. 168 in ReadWriteWeb. 108 in WSJ.com’s Technology feed. I spot some unlistened to tech podcasts and wonder what planet I was on when I thought I’d have enough time to just be casually listening to podcasts (sometime between watching our 13 month old son and running a start-up … riiiight).
The worst thing is that I’m a repeat offender. This is the sixth or seventh time now that I’ve gone through the process of subscribing to a ton of RSS feeds, then never really stayed on top of the most imoprtant part of reading them. When RSS first came out, I did it. When I first heard about News Gator, I did it. When Outlook 2007 had support of RSS, I did it. Each of these times (and others) I spent many hours going out and pulling in RSS feeds for many different tech-related sources. Each time I had this incredible enthusiasm for the idea of staying on top of all my tech news in such an organized manner. Each time, a few weeks passed where I struggled to keep up. Each time, RSS ultimately crushed me.
Every morning on my way to work, I practically trip over the Wall Street Journal / Financial Times combo that we’re subscribed to at our house. I pick it up off the steps about 50% of the time. In these cases, I’d estimate that I go on to read it (after my walk to work) about 25% of the time. The rest of the time, I get immediately caught up in email and work and at some point in the mid afternoon after lunch, I spot the papers – still wrapped in plastic and rubber band – and I feel pretty guilty about it.
Every day, I read and produce a ton of email. Every day, I find myself on tech news sites, and typically get wrapped up in at least one important announcement / story / development.
There’s no question that I enjoy reading tech news. But as I sit here and listen to the CNET Buzz Out Loud podcast that arrived earlier via RSS (the first one I’ve listened to in two weeks, despite really enjoying the previous one I listed to), and think to myself I should listen to this thing every time it arrives, I know it’s just the latest in a long line of broken promises to myself about how much tech news I’m going to read.
