RSS Feed Culling

I remember back when Google announced the shutdown of Google Reader. Like many people at the time, I was angry and sad. I had used Google Reader for years to follow along and track updates to websites. But unlike many people at the time, I never abandoned the RSS format. Neither has David Sparks.

For several years now, the trend among geeks has been to abandon the RSS format. RSS, or Really Simple Syndication, is a way to queue up and serve content from the internet. The MacSparky RSS, for example, gives RSS applications a list of all the articles I post here since you last checked int. It is a great way to read blogs and the backbone of podcast distribution. As social networks took off, a lot of my friends that were previously big RSS fans gave up on the technology and instead relied upon sources like Twitter and Facebook to get their news.

That was never me.

I never agreed with the idea that Twitter and Buzzfeed, etc., were a replacement for a "Really Simple Syndication" (RSS) news feed. It just didn’t make sense to follow a live stream of 140 character updates to catch what was going on with writers whose content I enjoyed.

This decision by Google cemented my thoughts and my decision to put control of my online content back into my hands. I took some time to try alternative services for hosting my RSS subscriptions. This was part of a more considerable effort to reduce the privacy implications of using social media services.

It's been a few years since the last time I reviewed and cleaned up my RSS subscriptions. Currently, there are 910 feeds in Feedbin. I think that's too many! I think I probably read and enjoy the content at only a few of those. Many are news sites that update dozens of times a day. A deluge of content I can't possibly read. I find myself the Mark All As Read button in Reeder whenever the number of unread items rises above 400. Some of the RSS feeds are dead. The author has abandoned the website and hasn't submitted new content in months and, in some cases, years. It's time for an RSS feed culling.

Author: Khürt Williams

Gen X-er near Princeton University in Montgomery Township, New Jersey, with a passion for aquariums, terrariums, technology, and photography. I love hiking in the woods, and my eclectic musical tastes span soca, Afrobeat, calypso, 1990s rap, grunge rock, and alternative genres. View all posts by Khürt Williams