Good stuff, Justin. I've also been looking at who a given user follows as a factor in deciding whether or not to follow them. It's my verison of, "Tell me who you follow, and I'll tell you who you are." - ha3rvey (doink doink)

Totally forgot to mention, when I do my weekly (or so) review, I'm using Hao Chen's GreaseMonkey Script. It's a life saver! http://userscripts.org/scripts... - Just updated the post to include the link as well. - Justin Korn

Solid advice. I really like the part about looking into their stream and analyzing what associated services mean what about which users. I'm relatively new so preventing noisy feeds is good. However, you should give a nod to the hide feature which lets me hide services from some users. I am a huge fan of that since it lets me get down to the really good bits of content being shared. - Derick Valadao from twhirl

Useful primer. - kamla bhatt

@Derick: Glad you found my post useful. As for the "Hide" function, I use it all the time, but I did not want to dig into how to deal with the noise issue. My main point was to inform users how I deal with my subscriptions in order to ensure my feed is relevant to me and my interest. In the long run, this is the best noise reducer there is (IMO). - Justin Korn

@Justin: Maybe it would make a suitable topic for a follow-up. I know the hide feature has been documented in many places but it would be really helpful to have a recent, well-written reference on how to filter out the noise within feeds you would normally find interesting. - Derick Valadao from twhirl

@Derick: I agree, it would be a great follow-up, however, I think Louis Gray's article hits home on covering how to use hide (http://www.louisgray.com/live...). If you haven't read it, give it a whirl and let me know if you still think another write-up is needed :) - Justin Korn

@Justin: ah yes. I remember reading that article. It did to a pretty good job. Thanks for reminding me. I did use some of his hints and it did a pretty decent job of keeping the talking points in focus. Maybe you are better to just link to the article in case others haven't read it :) - Derick Valadao from twhirl

@Derick: Chris Baskind also started this thread (http://friendfeed.com/e...) which has some good tips. I'm guessing he is thinking up a post on this very topic as we speak/write. - Justin Korn

@Justin: Wow is that ever an expansive list. I think your suspicions are well placed. - Derick Valadao from twhirl