Dan Lipert

One of my highest traffic posts is about how I gave up Reddit for managing my own RSS feeds. Well guess what? I ended up in that inbox-zero trap where I added too much and I felt like I had to read it all. I guess Google Reader at that time (maybe still now) had read/unread article counts, which is going to influence user’s behavior dramatically, especially those of us who manically have a desire to actually look at everything for fear of that one amazing diamond in the rough getting washed away. Twitter, kindly enough, doesn’t show an unread tweet count so I’ve gotten more into that as well (@easterisle).

Anyway - the point I want to focus on is that I went back to reddit. I know, I know, its probably worse now than it ever was in terms of trolling and general douchebaggery, but finding good subreddits really makes up for that. r/programming and r/netsec and pretty great, not to mention the various ganja-based boards, some of the political boards, etc. (/r/politics used to have this great ‘show all’ link which let you view all the submissions from all the political boards at once).

So I suppose my suggestion to anyone who comes across this is to register an account, get rid of all the front page reddits, and jump ship when it turns into Digg in 2 years.

RSS, or Really Simple Syndication has been around for a long, long time (apparently its over 10 years old), but I have met few people in real life that are big fans of it. Usually it seems like some people (say, your parents) have never heard of it, or other people (like your average web-a-holic) tried it and didn’t like it. The reasons for liking and disliking it are varied, but I have finally come to the conclusion that I really, really like it, and it can actually make you more productive. And what better way to kick off project52 than to get meta and blog about blogging.

For the uninitiated, RSS allows you to take all the content from your favorite blogs and websites, strip the layout, and plop them in one place. Standalone desktop RSS applications used to be the standard but now, with Google Reader combining a simple layout with just a pinch of social salt, getting an RSS client setup takes seconds. The idea is that websites give you a little orange RSS icon to click, which will automatically load the page into your client, and then you don’t have to visit their site anymore.

SO WHATS THE BIG DEAL

This is amazing for so many reasons. First, it saves you time. Secondly, it saves your eyes from looking at tons of ads, although some feeds include the ads in their feed, at which point I promptly drop them. Thirdly, it lets you customize the type of information you consume every day. It becomes a sort of personal newspaper, with numerous articles and rich multimedia content, all created and curated by content providers that you deem worthy. But in my mind, the number one reason to get an RSS reader is to break your addiction to social news sites like digg and reddit.

QUICK LIKE A BANDAID, RIGHT OFF

There have been more than a few commentaries and essays appearing lately decrying the unfortunate effects of crowdsourcing on modern culture. It seems that everyone coming together, voting up and down this and that, doesnt allow for the best material to rise to the top. Instead, a bunch of boring, trolling, flaming shit covers the front of every social news site you can find.

Obama sucks, Glenn Beck rapes, cats are funny, why don’t girls like me, and there is no God. That isn’t some blackhat seo keyword list, that’s the exact same content that is posted day after day. What happened to the internet? Did all of the good content get used up already? What happened to the promise of unlimited education, inspiration, discussion, and enlightenment?

Actually, its still there, and the internet is becoming richer and more amazing every day. But with that comes an amazingly huge group of screaming idiots trying to sell you some product or idea at the top of their lungs. And so, we use RSS to hire our own, personal editors, because in addition to blogs like this one that produce original content, there are millions that post “inspiration”, or “reblogs” or “stuff I like” or “COOL LINKZ” everyday. And if they post something I don’t like, I can drop them and pick up one of the thousands waiting to take their place.

So my new year’s resolution, albeit a bit late: I am never visiting reddit or digg again. Besides, if something really important happens, I’m sure I’ll see it on twitter.