"Tip of the Week" - Purge your RSS and Subscriptions

I couldn't get to the Tip of the Week any earlier this week because I was too busy purging my RSS and e-mail subscriptions.

You know what I'm talking about.  You read one or two interesting blog posts or articles from a blog author and you immediately subscribe to their RSS or e-newsletter only to find that when they send you a new post you are too busy (read 'not interested enough') to read what they subsequently write.

Or their topic no longer interests you.  Or they post so infrequently that when you get notification they've posted something new you don't remember subscribing and hit the 'spam' or delete button without opening.

Don't be shy.  If you've subscribed to a newsletter or RSS but you are not reading what they write or it has turned into a sales pitch you are not interested in, unsubscribe and free up your e-mail or feeds list for what you do want to read.

You actually do the author a favor, too.  You are sending a message that they need to get back on track to maintain your interest, write more frequently (or less), stop selling so hard or sell harder.

In the meantime, I'm going to take my own advice and continue to purge, purge, purge.  Don't worry.  I may purge you now, but once you start delivering the goods, again, I may just re-subscribe!

(Of course, this doesn't apply to Solo Practice University E-zine...:-)

Comments

[Geeklawyer]

Nooooo. Please,Susan, no, please. I'll write property law from now on I promise.

[Edward Wiest]

Sensible purging of one's RSS feed list is always a good idea (I know having 150+ blogs in my reader is a productivity drag). There are a few other ways, however, that one can keep up with one's favorite writers while minimizing time expenditure.

1. Many bloggers (including Susan) announce new blog posts with links via their Twitter feed. This is a good way to make sure you catch what you view as first tier posts before going to your reader where many more feeds are competing for your attention.

2. Many feed readers (such as Google Reader, which I use) provide "list views" which reduce new feed posts to a single line, permitting quicker scanning to separate the pearls from the chaff. Even better, Firefox users can install the Better GReader and-on (available through lifehack.org), which permits many feeds to be scanned in truncated form, then opens full feed posts within the Google Reader window with a single click). This allows users to get the gist of more feeds at one sitting in less time.