As I was perusing my feed reader two nights ago looking to see if there was any room to clear before adding some great new voices, I found myself at a loss in terms of determining who, if anyone, I should ditch.
I wasn’t necessarily looking to ditch anyone in particular because I like to have lots of options and throughly enjoy reading and learning from other bloggers, but I figured there had to be a few I could do without at this point.
What I found was there were several who had seemingly abandoned blogging altogether or had perhaps gotten way to busy to post with any regularity. But I still couldn’t bring myself to ditch them.
I thought about various “time-elapsed since posting” criteria to incorporate such as eliminating any blog that hadn’t been updated in, say…three-four weeks, but then I thought: “Well, what if they’re sick or had a family emergency?” “What if they’re working on a project overseas or if life has just gotten them tied up and away from the computer for a while?”
I then became concerned that I’d miss their next gem. What if they write something that could change my life and I miss it? That could be tragic!
I didn’t even want to entertain such a miss, but a few minutes later I did a complete 180 and convinced myself that if it was indeed a gem, surely one of my tweeps would post it and I’d come across the link that way.
Then I thought about how much I miss on twitter, so that took me right back to square one.
Now, two days and one clear head later, I’ve decided that a blog subscription is a privilege. It’s an honor. It’s me saying to you that I value your posts, your insight, your intellect and the time you take to share it all and most importantly I want the opportunity to read everything you write. To me, that’s a pretty big deal.
So shouldn’t that value come back to me, your faithful reader, as well?
Shouldn’t I expect a little more from you? I certainly want my Essence magazine to show up in the mailbox every month, and when it doesn’t I’m unhappy and ultimately due a refund, right?
Now, I do know that I didn’t pay for the blog subscription, at least not in cash.
But I do pay in a different currency, and it’s an ongoing payment: T-I-M-E.
And that is worth it’s weight in gold.
So please, keep blogging. You have readers for a reason. They want to read.
If you can’t deliver, perhaps it’s time to issue a refund.
If you enjoyed this post, please consider leaving a comment or subscribing to the feed to have future posts delivered to your feed reader.
Stumble It!
8 comments
Comments feed for this article
January 5, 2009 at 4:40 pm
Ruby Sinreich
To the contrary, I’m more likely to follow/subscribe to people who have a high ratio of valuable content to posts. I’d much rather get less-frequent, higher-quality updates. And the beauty of RSS and Twitter is that the updates will come to me, so I don’t waste any time if people don’t publish.
January 5, 2009 at 4:43 pm
jeremylindh
I add way too many feeds to my RSS, and find myself trimming back quite a bit. Generally if I remove a feed it’s not from a lack of posting, but from too many. I value anything I subscribe to, but if I feel like one or two feeds are dominating my time I could spend reading others, I’ll often remove the feed. It’s gotta be a great feed for me to appreciate daily articles.
January 5, 2009 at 5:22 pm
Jeff Stern
I’m with Ruby and Jeremy. While I love Beth Kanter’s posts on noprofit tech, for example, I wish that she’d actually slow down a little bit. I’m all for the “slow blogging” movement that emphasizes quality and thought over quantity. Right now I’ve got 300+ posts that I do want to read when I get the time – those that I’m considering trimming are ones that offer regular posts with little relevant, interesting or thoughtful content. Malcolm Gladwell’s blog was in my reader without an update for over 6 months, and I was fine with having it stay there. I was also really excited to see new posts coming when his book came out, and am grateful that he has only posted 4-5 times (because the posts are well-thought-out and add value to his work, which adds value to my life).
January 5, 2009 at 5:38 pm
Martin Reed
Some comforting comments here, especially as my blogging frequency has dropped to around one article per week!
I have one written and ready to publish but thought I would see if I could make a podcast out if it – should be fun!
- Martin
January 5, 2009 at 6:00 pm
Martin Reed
On second thoughts – work is piled up this week, I’ll put the podcast on ice for now
- Martin
January 5, 2009 at 6:13 pm
Angela Connor
Great points. I too believe that one can post too often. Some of the 4X per day get to be a bit overwhelming, but I suppose that depends on the length and who the blogger is.
@Martin I don’t think 1-2 articles per week is too little, especially with your posts. You tend to write really interesting longer, thought provoking posts with lots of great links. I know when I see one of yours in the reader that I will need time to digest it and comment.
@Jeff- You make a good point about blogging based on what’s happening in your life as well..such as writing a book.
@Jeremy: How do you trim a blog that takes too much of your time? It
seems that would be one that you *really* like.
@Ruby: yes, I suppose I should just be happy to have a method that brings the new posts to my attention as opposed to sweating the level of inactivity.
January 6, 2009 at 1:57 pm
jeremylindh
@Angela Good point! Maybe it’s smarter to say it takes up too much of my RSS Reader “screen real estate.”
Here’s one actual example of a soon-to-be-trimmed feed… It’s one with GREAT tutorials for photoshop. I rarely have time to try them, but I like the feed because otherwise I’d forget about the site. The reason for this one getting trimmed isn’t posting too often, but the length of the post. I have to page down a bunch of times just to get past it. They need a way to summarize their feed, so people like me could go to their site if interested. ( or, i could probably learn the shortcut key to skip to the next article, huh? )
January 7, 2009 at 12:27 am
Bryan Person
Angela:
If you primarily read blogs through RSS — which it appears you do — then don’t sweat it. When those bloggers who’ve been quiet lately blog again, their posts will show up in your reader. Use your energies keeping up with the other bloggers who are active!
On the other hand, from the blogger’s perspective, I don’t think you should assume that all your readers will be so forgiving — or even that they’ll read your stuff in an RSS reader. To build an engaged readership, you should be consistent in your blogging output. If that’s once a day, fine. If that’s 3 times a week, then so be it. But you just went to set readers’ expectations.
Bryan | @BryanPerson