April 28, 2008

So many blogs, so little time

Since I have discovered the world of blogs, I have found myself mildly addicted to blogs: my own and other's blogs. I have subscribed to many blogs using Google reader. Google reader is a great tool to manage your blogs, it allows you to subscribe to your favorite blogs and it automatically updates those blogs. No more having to bookmark blogs to your favorites and constantly checking a blog to find out if it has been updated. It also allows you to sort or organize your blogs based on different topics so that it is a one stop place to read your favorite blogs. All you need is a gmail account. The only thing it does not allow you to do is to comment on a blog without having to go to the actual blog. But Google reader provides a direct link to the blog to make your comments, so it really isn't that big a deal.

On many blogs you will see the RSS symbol, like the one I have on the top left-hand corner of my blog feed. Click on that icon allows you to easily subscribe to a blog feed. Or you can easily subscribe to a blog on Google reader by directly typing in the URL, which is what I did before I learned about the RSS icon. I talk about Google reader, because that is what I have but there are many other readers/feeds out there from Yahoo, MSN, AOL, etc.

In addition to my friend's personal blogs, I follow many other topical blogs. There is quite a wealth of information on blogs, it is a great way to share information and to learn about many different topics. There are blogs on food, personal finance, fitness, frugal shopping, photography, fashion, and there are blogs on how to blog. I have learned quite a lot from many blogs, especially from the personal finance blogs, I have found some great recipes on food blogs, and I have enjoyed reading tips from health and fitness blogs. I have so many interests in so many areas and blogs are a nice way to get some information and learn about new things. (My disclaimer: Of course, one needs to realize that the information on blogs are not necessarily written by experts. As a researcher, I do take a critical eye to the information out on the web. Not all the information on the web is accurate and reliable.)

But I think that I might be developing a problem, I have 104 blogs that I subscribe to in my Google reader and I keep adding new blogs all the time. I am having a hard time keeping up. I need to figure out a better way to prioritize my blog subscription lists. Each day, I have over 200 new blog posts waiting for me to read in my Google reader and I never get through all of them. I was away from my computer for the weekend and I came home last night to close to 400 posts! Yikes! I want to read them all, but with work and life there is just not enough time in the day. I need to learn to let go and realize that I can't possibly read every single blog out there. Oh bother.

Photo Source: Microsoft iStock

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2 comments:

  1. RobynApril 28, 2008 at 9:11 AM

    I love google reader! I don't think I could handle subscribing to over a 100 blogs. I only have about 50 and I find that I lot! I have mine organized by category and I find that helps a lot.

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  2. LeslieApril 28, 2008 at 9:15 AM

    I subscribe to probably about 250+ feeds, but some of those are flickr photo feeds. I have my google reader divided into categories, and there are always categories that get neglected. At the end of the week, with minimal reading during the week, I usually have 1000+ posts to look at. I usually take the time to look at the ones that are my absolute favorite and then hit "mark all as read" for the rest of them.

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