MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - When RSS feeds are overwhelming... drowning in 75,000+ unread items!

Bob Russell · 08-25-2006, 12:53 PM

I'm a technology news junkie. If there was nothing else more important, I could spend all day reading tech, science, business and political news. And it would be a delight. I've also found that RSS feeds are a wonderful way to force feed the news without taking too much time. With a web-based rss feed reader like Bloglines, you can even keep everything in sync no matter where you read the stories from.

But have you even found that, say after a vacation, you have hundreds of unread stories? It overwhelms you and takes all the fun out of it. I've had that experience, but I'd have to say that it was never before as bad as it is now. I've got over 75,000 unread items waiting for me!

The number started this morning at less than a hundred, which is a typical sort of unread story count for me until recently, and that much only takes a few minutes to get through (not counting the time to read the especially interesting stories that I read directly from the originating site). But by late morning it was over 50,000 new items, and now I'm at a record 76,385. I'm afraid to refresh and watch it go even higher!

Yes, this is definitely an anomaly. I use Bloglines, and it's my favorite feed reader. As I said, it's web-based, but it's also wonderful for reading from a connected pda or smartphone like my Treo 700p. It would take a lot to get me to move off of Bloglines because it's so nice and has become so familiar and convenient for me.

Bloglines has had some recent issues keeping the feeds refreshed and updated properly. They have a wonderfully responsive help desk, and promptly sent me a very nice note explaining the situation. One more reason I want to stick with this great and free service.

Today, I think it's safe to say that the refresh problem has been solved! No lack of news here. So my plan is to pick out my favorite site feeds and skim for the best stories very quickly. Less than 30mins. Then I'm going to take the unread items and mark them all as "read". If I was really organized, I'd have my feeds prioritized and listed in that order. But like most of us, I'm not quite that obsessed with being organized. So it will have to be a good guess with a quick scan.

I used to feel guilty marking my feeds as "read" when I hadn't looked at them yet. (Of course, that's read as in "they are no longer marked as 'unread', not as in "set aside to make sure you read them later". Bloglines has a separate feature for that, called the Clippings.) There's something unfinished, and improper about doing that isn't there? Isn't it cheating? Almost a lie? And won't I take a chance on missing that spectacular story that I will have wished I had seen?

Turns out that if something is that important, others will pick up on it and I'll be seeing it for days and weeks anyway. And it feels wonderful to see the unread items count at 0! I suppse I should probably pare down my list of more than 250 feeds, but that takes time, so it will have to wait for another day.

Moral of this story... Every now and then be sure to clear your RSS inbox and mark all your feeds as "read." You'll thank me for it, and you'll feel much better!

08-25-2006, 12:53 PM	#1
Bob Russell Recovering Gadget Addict Posts: 5,381 Karma: 676161 Join Date: May 2004 Location: Pittsburgh, PA Device: iPad	When RSS feeds are overwhelming... drowning in 75,000+ unread items! I'm a technology news junkie. If there was nothing else more important, I could spend all day reading tech, science, business and political news. And it would be a delight. I've also found that RSS feeds are a wonderful way to force feed the news without taking too much time. With a web-based rss feed reader like Bloglines, you can even keep everything in sync no matter where you read the stories from. But have you even found that, say after a vacation, you have hundreds of unread stories? It overwhelms you and takes all the fun out of it. I've had that experience, but I'd have to say that it was never before as bad as it is now. I've got over 75,000 unread items waiting for me! The number started this morning at less than a hundred, which is a typical sort of unread story count for me until recently, and that much only takes a few minutes to get through (not counting the time to read the especially interesting stories that I read directly from the originating site). But by late morning it was over 50,000 new items, and now I'm at a record 76,385. I'm afraid to refresh and watch it go even higher! Yes, this is definitely an anomaly. I use Bloglines, and it's my favorite feed reader. As I said, it's web-based, but it's also wonderful for reading from a connected pda or smartphone like my Treo 700p. It would take a lot to get me to move off of Bloglines because it's so nice and has become so familiar and convenient for me. Bloglines has had some recent issues keeping the feeds refreshed and updated properly. They have a wonderfully responsive help desk, and promptly sent me a very nice note explaining the situation. One more reason I want to stick with this great and free service. Today, I think it's safe to say that the refresh problem has been solved! No lack of news here. So my plan is to pick out my favorite site feeds and skim for the best stories very quickly. Less than 30mins. Then I'm going to take the unread items and mark them all as "read". If I was really organized, I'd have my feeds prioritized and listed in that order. But like most of us, I'm not quite that obsessed with being organized. So it will have to be a good guess with a quick scan. I used to feel guilty marking my feeds as "read" when I hadn't looked at them yet. (Of course, that's read as in "they are no longer marked as 'unread', not as in "set aside to make sure you read them later". Bloglines has a separate feature for that, called the Clippings.) There's something unfinished, and improper about doing that isn't there? Isn't it cheating? Almost a lie? And won't I take a chance on missing that spectacular story that I will have wished I had seen? Turns out that if something is that important, others will pick up on it and I'll be seeing it for days and weeks anyway. And it feels wonderful to see the unread items count at 0! I suppse I should probably pare down my list of more than 250 feeds, but that takes time, so it will have to wait for another day. Moral of this story... Every now and then be sure to clear your RSS inbox and mark all your feeds as "read." You'll thank me for it, and you'll feel much better!