Making RSS about people

I’ve been talking about RSS feeds for about 13 years now, and have been using them much longer than that. I recently suggested that most everyone should be using them, and you can see how they fit into my larger system here.

That said, I’m constantly adjusting how I use them, which is part of the benefit of them. You can control exactly which sources reach you and which don’t, with no filters or algorithms in the way, so I frequently tweak who I follow and who I don’t.

To that end, I recently made two big changes.

Cut out some noisemakers

The first thing I did was cut out some of the sources that publish a lot of content, specifically TechCrunch and Lifehacker. Both sites put out great content, but just SO much of it. Any big story that I might pick up from them I’ll likely see elsewhere, so I’ve removed them both for now. So far I’m very pleased with that decision.

Added more humans

At the same time, I’ve started adding more humans to my feeds — people that I respect and follow. I’m enjoying their content, but this is where the beauty of RSS really kicks in.

If they post something, I see it.

If they stop posting, it doesn’t affect me. It’s not like I have to go to their sites periodically to see…