It makes a ton of sense to limit your bloglines to those blogs that you learn the most from. However, as another blogger, I must admit that the process of cutting down on your links makes me (my ego) a bit uncomfortable. If everybody cuts down on the blogs that they read there's going to be a small group of blogs that are read by many and all the other blogs will be largely ignored. Web 2.0 will lose some of its power. But then again, this seems like the practicality of the world. None of us have the time to read everything that is out there. If someone wants to be in the top twenty they've got to work hard and earn it.

Am I making any sense?

You're making perfect sense ... I know exactly what you mean.

I know that many of the people I'm subscribed to read blogs that I don't . In this way whenever they comment on something they've read elsewhere then I go off and read about that too. In the meantime I still browse lots of blogs to keep my reading fresh, it's just that I really needed a way to cut down on the amount there was to read. I was drowning in text and feeling like there was too much to read so I wasn't reading anything. One of the criteria for my selections was also that they the authours don't publish "too much" (for me) content. Too much content overwhelms rather than informs.

I've thought that too of my blog posts. Whenever I write a long one I try to follow up with a few short ones. I know that when someone has a habit of writing very long blog posts I tend to skim or just click through. If they tend to write long post only occasionally then I'm inclined to read what about what inspired them to write so much.

These are just my personal reading quirks, for good or bad, I've come to recognize that this is how I read.

I am amazed at the coincidence! I just wrote an article for my blog entitled: "Electronic Birling Makes One Fall off the Log"

The entry essentially says what you are saying: Way too much info, and Web 2.0 technology is partially to blame.

Hope some of you can come by and read it.

TimHolt
El Paso Texas

Thanks for dropping by Tom.

I suspect that my subscriptions will grow. I've set a personal cap of 50 ... time will tell if I can keep to it.

I still read many blogs other than those I've subscribed to but on more of an intermittent schedule. Also, when someone on my reading list links to something I tend to tumble down the rabbit hole and read several blogs I don't subscribe to.

For me, the goal here is to keep my aggregator down to a manageable number so that I'm not discouraged from reading. This isn't necessarily a solution that works for others ... I'm just trying to find one that works for me. ;-)

I've been influenced by folks like Alan too and have switched to Google Reader, and I'm finding that the move is giving me similar benefit to moving in real life: I've dumped a lot of that excess stuff that I wasn't using anymore anyway, thinning my feeds down dramatically.

Geoff

I'm loving Google Reader. I think it becomes better over time ... as you accumulate reading patterns that provide fodder for the built in data analysis tools. Fascinating stuff. ;-)