Some people ask me why I subscribe to so many feeds. (Here’s my complete list, as an OPML file, which currently includes approximately 500 feed subscriptions.) Well, it’s all about how I use them. For me, different feeds serve different purposes.
On Nov. 1, Ross Mayfield contended in “Attention Saturation” that the maximum number of feeds a person can possibly tolerate is 150.
Obviously, that limit doesn’t work for me.
Here’s how Ross explained his limit, and my explanation of why I’ve vastly exceeded it…
Ross wrote:
“…What number of feeds we can possibly tolerate? The answer is about 150, the cognitive limit of our mental capacities to track social relationships. Sure, we can have more sources of information. But in abundance, we will rely on our social networks as the filter. ”
Well, I don’t object to 150 being a cognitive limit on tracking social relationships. I haven’t reviewed the research he cites, but it sounds plausible. And I do indeed subscribe to some feeds in order to maintain social or professional relationships. However, I personally use feeds for far more than that. For me, they’re a way to maintain my own personal library of current information sources. That’s a connectivity function, but not especially social.
I explained all this in the following comment, which I just posted to Ross’ article:
Hi, Ross.
I’m with J. Wynia [a previous commenter] on this one. Feeds can be a way to maintain connections, social-relationship style. But they also can be simply reference tools or content sources, too.
For instance, in my feed reader (Sage, a Firefox extension), I currently have nearly 500 feed subscriptions. These are sorted into folders.
At the top of my list are the approximately 30-40 feeds in my “must read” folder. These are content sources (blogs, publications, organizations) that are of current or ongoing significant interest to me. This list shifts daily with my interests and with new discoveries. Generally, as a new feed captures my interest, I bump one which has become less interesting.
I also maintain a folder of current topical searches, which deliver items from a variety of sources that match saved source criteria at places like Technorati, Google News, etc. Right now I only have 10 of those.
And of course I have a folder for “ego surfing,” so I can monitor how my name or weblog (http://contentious.com) is popping up in the public conversation.
Finally, I have 30 folders where I put all my other feeds, categorized by topic.
Usually, if a resource has a few interesting items, I’ll check it out for a few days in my “must reads.” If I decide to keep it, it’ll eventually bump down into my topical folders. I don’t check these every day, but I prefer to subscribe to feeds rather than make a bookmark because a bookmark tells me very little about why I might be interested in a site. I turn up a lot of surprising gems this way.
So the number of feeds I actively monitor falls well within your limit of 150. However, for me it would be counterproductive to avoid subscribing to more than 150 feeds. There are just too many ways I can use that information. I love serendipity.
- Amy Gahran
Editor, Contentious
Thanks to Easton Ellsworth of Business Blog Wire for recommending that I respond to Ross Mayfield’s article.)
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