I'm surprised that people think everyone... - Paul Buchheit

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I'm surprised that people think everyone subscribed to their RSS feed actually reads their blog. In Google Reader, I'm subscribed to hundreds of feeds (including a number of bundles), but really only read a couple of them. The same for iGoogle, etc. (re: http://friendfeed.com/friendf...)

June 18 - Comment - Like - Share

Sergi, Alif Rachmawadi, Internet Strategist and 109 other people liked this

Do you read all of your feeds? - Paul Buchheit

I skim them all quickly. The 'j' key is my friend: next, next, next, ... - Fred Yankowski

I do. If you call reading, browsing "all items"... - David Schmidt

Same here; I've got about 500 feeds in bloglines, most of them in folders I literally never click on. - Casey Muller

Hmmm... I wonder if there's a better way to get at those couple of things you read? - Cliff Gerrish

I think I make it a point to read everything in about 15% of the blogs: otherwise, it's just skimming through the headlines. This is exactly what I do on FriendFeed, so this Feedburner business is fine by me. I'd like to figure out why my projects feed got the FriendFeed bump when my blog feed didn't, though. - Mark Trapp

I thought the same thing when I saw people complaining about the FF stat change this morning. I read more through FriendFeed than I do RSS subscriptions I have, which are many. - Keith Bourgoin

I guess people are very optimistic :) - Paul Buchheit

I have 2 tiers of feeds. Top tier always gets at least headlines read, articles read based on interest level. Bottom tier only gets attention if something stands out, or if I have some extra time. - LogEx

People should think instead that everyone subscribed to their RSS feed feels bad about all those unread items. - Johannes Emerich

Why would you subscribe to things you don't read? - Gabe

I've trimmed my feeds down to a number that I can check out each item. Why subscribe to hundreds of feeds if you aren't going to read them? Search? - Sam Grover

Cliff, it works reasonably well for those couple of feeds I read because I can login every few days and skim the headlines (I don't read the full content of anything). Gabe, I basically subscribe to anything that sounds like it might be interesting, then simply stop reading anything that doesn't keep my attention. Google Reader makes this very easy, and there's really no downside to staying subscribed. - Paul Buchheit

Gabe: would you consider skimming headlines and reading things that spark your interest from there the same as reading a blog regularly? Most of the blogs I subscribe to have maybe 1 in 10 stories that'll interest me: because of that 1 in 10, I subscribe to them. I wouldn't consider myself reading the blogs, though. - Mark Trapp

I think that attitude spills over to FF and Twitter as well though - especially a problem with real time FF. At least FF has a mechanism for bringing things to foreground that might be more important. - Brian Sullivan

The scale of my available time for reading feeds varies over time. The number of feeds I'm subscribed to only increases over time. Occasionally I "start over". - Jason Wehmhoener

I read the majority - Shevonne

no not even close - andy brudtkuhl

I don't read every article of every feed, I don't think anyone does. However from the feedburner reach stat, I see that about 50% of RSS subscribers do fetch the complete article (can't tell whether they actually read it). From referral logs, way less than 1% of people subscribed to me on friendfeed click through to blog postings. Thats a big difference. - DGentry

That's because the subscriber count metric is useless to begin with. So why pad it now with even more numbers? - Aviv

I skim the titles to find interesting items. I read < 10% of the items. - Gary Burd

My intent is to read most everything...like Jason, though, I have to start over at times, and toss out what I'm not actually getting to. (there's also a separate category of utility feeds like Steam game releases, crimewatch info, etc. that's not really the same as real people writing stuff. I skim those pretty much 100%) - Ken Kennedy

Not even close to all, I have +150 feeds on GReader and follow +120 tumblrs. There's no way to read all this stuff and it not be my job. - Cornelius Toole

I don't think it's useless Aviv. It's not exact, but a blog with 10,000 subscribers will almost certainly have more actual readers than one with 10. (the proportions are useful) - Paul Buchheit

Agreed, Paul...you can basically figure out where something is on the power law graph, but not exact rankings. - Ken Kennedy

Yes, I read everything I subscribe to in Google Reader. I only subscribe to full feeds, I use Expanded view, and I hit "J" scanning each article. If a site doesn't offer a full feed, I don't subscribe. I don't personally consider FriendFeed a feed reader, and won't until and unless it (1) displays full articles (2) gives me the option to mark articles read/unread. - Ken Sheppardson

Hum... why the heck someone do subscribe feeds and never read it? I need an explanation :) - Ryo / Fuck Facebook

There's no cost for the unread, except to the extent it makes reading those one or two items difficult. - Cliff Gerrish

Lots of people have magazine subscriptions and newspaper subscriptions but never or rarely read them -- and are often just to lazy or unaware to unsubscribe even when it costs money. RSS subscription costs nothing and is easy to subside -- I am guessing many subscribe in good faith thinking they might read, then never or rarely read and just never bother to clean up. - Brian Sullivan

Paul, that's certainly true, but it's like saying that a site with 10,000 unique visitors must have more visitors than a site with 10 uniques. My point is, should the number of a blogger's FF subscribers count as unique hits in their Google Analytics page? - Aviv

Brian, right, so if Maxim opens a FriendFeed account and gets 20,000 people to subscribe to their account - should they tell advertisers they just earned 20K new subscribers to the magazine? - Aviv

Paper publications play all sorts of games with numbers talking about subscribers and readers as different numbers but there are standards. So they can't claim subscribers to the magazine because of the FF subscribers. - Brian Sullivan

Aviv, there's a difference between what Feedburner stats should show, and what they actually show: there's a case to be made that Feedburner should be as accurate as Nielsen PeopleCounters, and we should all be able to use those numbers to determine things like advertising revenue, but the argument being posited here is that Feedburner was never that accurate (or that they aren't meant to be that accurate), and adding FriendFeed stats doesn't change that for the worse. - Mark Trapp

Brian: oh, well, I wasn't aware that bloggers don't have standards... - Aviv

Bloggers don't have standards -- not in the sense that they are agreed upon between publishers and advertisers and auditible. - Brian Sullivan

I read everything I'm subscribed to or I unsubscribe. That is why I can't use FriendFeed except as another filtered source for my RSS reader (spoonfeedr.com) - Sam Pullara

I'm sure I'm subscribed to tons and haven't opened up my RSS reader in months. - Thomas Hawk

I don't think FF stats should be reflected in metrics that measure blog readership - at least not yet (still waiting for the day I can click on a little plus sign and read the blog post inline;). Look, I'm subscribed to you, because I enjoy your activity on FF, but just a moment ago was my first ever visit to your blog. - Aviv

By the way, how much of an article do I have to read before it counts as "read"? The whole thing? The first paragraph? 50%? Does it depend on how long the article is? - Ken Sheppardson

Aviv: but the point being made is that even without FriendFeed statistics, Feedburner doesn't accurately show blog readership via the "subscribers" metric anyway. Whatever Feedburner does show doesn't seem to be affected by the addition of FriendFeed subscribers beyond a sudden jump in the number. Taking the Feedburner statistics, without FriendFeed, as being an accurate representation of blog readership does not seem to be a given. One could argue that the subscribers metric ought to tell you how many things are pulling your feed, whatever they may be, while reach ought to tell you how many things are reading (or at least opening) the feed. - Mark Trapp

Well, if FF knows that FB's numbers are bogus to begin with and doesn't mind adding some of their own numbers even though they obviously don't represent actual readership or anything close to that, then you're right, no point to even argue. :) - Aviv

Next thing you know, twitterfeed.com will start reporting to FB and count followers are readers. And why should FB have a problem with this? After all, it's always nice to see the blogosphere growing.. ;) - Aviv

I do read lot of them. Not daily. But i try to catchup once in a while. I have 150+ - Vivek Puri

I read all my feeds. I don't expect everybody reads mine every day. - Louis Gray

i think its important to trim subscriptions once a month. we like to think that we can read everything we want to read. Everytime i add an RSS feed i get tickled with excitement that i'll soon be melding that blog our site into my internal matrix and knowledge machine. I think being a self arbiter is really important. Also, seeing so many unread blog geeds can be discouraging...always saying to yourself...oh i should be reading more. when in fat that is not the case. Reading less can very well be more... - Zachary Adam Cohen

@louisgray cough BS cough ;) - Zachary Adam Cohen

I skim the titles. It's nice to know though how many are interested in/by your blog even if they don't read each and every post. - Matt Soreco

Confession time! Yep, I've got tons of "unread" items in my gReader. It's become a wasteland of abandoned feeds. (ok bookmarking service?) LOL ... I live here in FF, Tweetdeck, Techrigy SM2, etc. Don't get me wrong, I dont' ignore my feeds, I found it much easier to just make lists and imaginary friends (feeds) here in Friendfeed - way better client than gReader - Susan Beebe

No - Oğuz Serdar

Nope. I have all my feed broken down in lists, though, and only manage to read around 50 of the 200 feeds in there. - Brandon

I find that I am reading quite a few more feeds since switching to Twitter, and reading them more productively. - Sean McBride

Interesting -- I've just asked a few friends to send me their OPML files so that I can do a little network analysis. (1) Lots of people tell me that they're using Twitter and serendipity to keep in touch these days, and that they're using their RSS readers less. (2) *everyone* on the list is in danger of info overload if they're REALLY reading that many blogs. Here's an interesting post from 43 folders about avoiding RSS overload - http://bit.ly/1H6Ty - Mat Morrison

Zachary... I read all my feeds. I never mark all as read. - Louis Gray

I try to read them all, but if I notice that I'm regularly marking all of the items in a particular feed as read, then that's typically one step north of removal (for me, at least). I keep a pretty tidy feed list, for the most part. - Brett Kelly

I usually skim all items in my All Items list of Google Reader, just like Robert Scoble showed in a video http://www.viddler.com/explore... a few years ago. If I find something interesting I will read the post right in Reader or if it's to long (and sometimes videos) then I will ctrl-click to open it in a new tab. When I completed skimming the whole list I will read the opened tabs. - Peter Stuifzand

I scroll through and read headlines quickly. If I see one I like, I'll read the article. - EricaJoy

Agree w/ EricaJoy. That's the general purpose of RSS, to skim through sites/feeds that you have some interest w/o going to the page unless there is something of interest. RSS Readers are almost personalized, granted mostly not intelligent (yet), Search Engines or enhanced Bookmarks. - manielse (Mark Nielsen)

I'm subscribed to a lot of feeds too. I always say I'll read them later... later never, ever comes and I end up unsubscribing a year or two later. - Michelle

I subscribe to a number of feeds, and read all but two. Those two frequently get the "Mark All As Read" treatment. - Piaw Na

i don't read all of my feeds - but i do search them for certain topics all the time - mike "glemak" dunn

I religiously unsubscribe from anything I notice that I'm not actually reading. Keep the clutter to a minimum! - Murray Barton

If I'm not interested in reading a feed I don't subscribe. Do I read every article in depth....no....read some, skim some, and save some to read on the weekend when all my feeds have less activity, and I have more time. - Bonnie Foster

Every feed, over time, sure; every single feed item, no. - Grant Bierman

why subscribe, then? Curious... - Valeria Maltoni

i switched all my feeds over to friendfeed. i don't even look at google reader anymore - Tyler Gillies

Blogs are for slow consumption. Friendfeed, Twitter are my quick glance channels. They provide rivers of information I can dive into if I feel like it. I use GReader to subscribe mostly to people that actually take the time to think before they write. No TechCrunch or other networks there. I get slapped around with that on any other channel I'm watching. GReader is my e-book/essay reader. I try to read it all and I enjoy the slow consumption as it makes me smarter ;-) - Alexander van Elsas

Alexander, you might... but not everyone else does.. Feedburner numbers are BS anyways.. :) - Tim Hoeck

Not trying to convince anyone, just explaining what it is I do. GReader for the long and in depth stuff, everything else goes in the firehose - Alexander van Elsas

No, not all...just a few Favs & Essential/Pro feeds. & ya i use GReader :) - Roshan Ramachandran

There's also a difference between skimming the headlines and actually "reading" the entire article. Also, rarely do people click through to the blog on Google Reader - on FriendFeed that happens much more, as I'm sure you have stats to prove. - Jesse Stay

@Jesse, my personal experience with FF makes me sometimes wonder if people did actually read the original item. Often initial comments and discussions seem to start in a different direction then the item that was posted. It seems to happen most often with blog items. Not saying that is bad or anything. But I do wonder.... ;-) - Alexander van Elsas

Blogging isn't dead. What is dead is READING. Blogs and sites in general especially Newspapers need to transition to VIDEO. I mean, you'll read things you find compelling, but you're 10x more likely to watch a video of it. There's nothing sacred about text. It was the means of recording of its day, but now video is the recording of its day. - Stephen Pickering

Paul, is it possible to make the numbers going to Feedburner a choice based on the user? Personally, while I think there are a few quirks, I like the decision and would prefer you not go back. - Jesse Stay

@Steven, I like video but I rarely watch it. I turn it on as radio in the background ;-) - Alexander van Elsas

Alexander, yes, I agree, maybe I should have emphasized SOUND as well. When I listen to Video Podcasts for instance, I usually listen in the background too - Stephen Pickering

I'm surprised people still think people read. - Eric Nakagawa

Yes, most of them. The ones that accumulate in the unread pile get unsubscribed to because it's a signal that the information isn't that compelling or useful. I unsubscribed to many high-volume blogs because I *will* see them via FriendFeed. So the feeds I *do* have in RSS are fairly well groomed and read - I'll certainly get around to all of them in a week. - AJ Kohn

@erik, you must be living on another planet than I do ;-) - Alexander van Elsas

i sadly agree with stephen @pickering . "what is dead is reading" - bora "head" basman

i agree with you up to some point. I don't miss the personal blogs but big websites such as Rollingstone or digg offer a lot more content than I can possibly spare time to read. Most of the time I miss them for a few days, then I notice that there are 1000+ entries to read. - Yiğit Arda Türkoğlu

I just read and skip to important blog or news. Too many things to read these days, too many information - Hendra Saputra

I use my feed readers in a somewhat deviant way: I create categorized folders about the topics I'm most interested in ( RSS / OPML, Firefox, Twitter, Online Reputation Management, etc). When I come across a feed of interest, I 'feedmark' it by adding it to the appropriate category. Each of these folders become reading lists. Most of the reading lists I create are publicly available at http://cleverclogs.blogbridge.com. That way other people can benefit from the research I do. The importance of each list may vary depending on my current focus. Instead of displaying feeds on a regular monitor, I'm now experimenting with text RSS-enabled digital photo frames. - Marjolein Hoekstra

The way for Newspapers to save themselves is to become video centric, not throw their paper up on the net. Boring. They need to become to internet TV stations. They need to be 24/7 real time. That's what the world is. They need to hire a Leo Laporte for every category and it needs to be totally interactive. When you go to the NYtimes.com it needs to be a totally different experience. Look at the money they have compared to Leo. They could transition to this in a second. - Stephen Pickering

I read almost all my feeds. If I stop reading a feed, I generally remove it so it won't distract my attention. - 9000

nope, I only read faved feed. When faved feed is running out of interesting stuff, then I go dig the rest - Toni @ NavinoT

This is why I declare bankruptcy regularly in Google Reader: So I can read all my feeds. This is also why I don't have 1000+ unread. I subscribe to sites I read, not to popular sites. - Bwana ☠

I skim all my many subscribed RSS feeds and if they don't update in a few weeks I move them to a special folder-of-death. - Rick Cogley

I'm very selective and hate skipping items. So yes, i read (almost) everything. In fact, when i can't read all, I unsubscribe. - Stanislas Jourdan

BTW, friendfeed is precisely the tool complementary with FF because they are different : in FF you can't read everything (but the community filters what is important) whereas on reader, you're more likely to read everything. Very different use IMO - Stanislas Jourdan

Despite my best efforts - many feeds go unread. That is why the reach number is so important vs. actual total readership. - Eric

It seems to me that the main point of this discussion is that we need to develop advanced news recommender systems that automatically push the most important news to us on a person by person basis. I wish that Friendfeed would seize this bull by the horns. That most important news should be sifted from all the news in the world, not just from our feed collections. - Sean McBride

I think that people who don't read almost everything just don't use their reader as they should. But that is just my point of view. - Stanislas Jourdan

there are a few select feeds that go in my "must reads" folder, everything else gets skimmed. Mark All Read gets used a lot on everything else. it works well. - Bill Kinney

The "Mark All Read" button is a form wishful thinking. Perhaps, it'd be better labeled "Don't Care." - Cliff Gerrish

what's funny is that when I see an item pass through friendfeed that I know I've already subscribed to in google reader, I'll skip it and wait to read it in g-reader. - chrisofspades

Jason -- an effective news recommender algorithm should fit your mind like a glove: the prioritization of global trends PLUS your most intense interests, as determined by your clickstream. - Sean McBride

Can't read everything - too much stuff ;-) I have basically two categories for feeds - I read all of the majority of my feeds, but I have a dozen or so news/cool stuff feeds that just produce far too much to read it all (on those i skim the latest news occasionally and they often have a couple of hundred unread items) - immaterial

OK, I'm dense... where'd the friends reports go for my account? Can't figure out how to see them like I used to... - Walt Ruppar

Paul's statement above makes sense but I think the spirit of the subscriber count change intentionally dilutes feed reader measurements. I've written a long-form response here: http://friendfeed.com/dpritch... - Daniel J. Pritchett

Every blogger should read this thread re:"Think everyone sub'd to your RSS feed actually reads your blog?" - Alex Schleber

Jason -- I disagree. A newsreader should know your own "cloud tag" by using historical behavior. If that maps to top trends in Twitter great but I certainly don't follow that rule. If that was the case, I'd being reading things about #iran and #squarespace at the top which should not fit my profile unless I started to tag those trends. - manielse (Mark Nielsen)

I don't read all of my feeds and I don't think anyone does. I scan my feeds though, via ff. People need ways to aggregate our content, and the smartest people are using social platforms like friendfeed, instead of using RSS readers. One reason why is because filtering the noise is highly efficient with friendfeed lists, and conversation is only a click away. Plus ff is ad free and I can connect with people who have similar views. This approach is working great for me so far! - Garin Kilpatrick

Good point - LANjackal

I don't read everything, I don't have enough time :-( There are feeds that I do read completely (the whole article), some I just check the headlines to figure out which article is cool, and some I clearly don't read (my 'bulk' folder, with zillions of entries each day). - TiTi

For the little guy it works... Logged into feedburner and was like Woah... I may actually put a subscriber badge in my site now. - Walt Ruppar

There are some magazines you just leaf throught and others you read entirely. It's the same for my RSS feeds. I read the first ones on FF, the others on Google reader. - Stanislas Jourdan

I understand why you don't read everything because if you did there would be little to no time left for work. It might be a great idea to reply to direct communications from folks that promote FriendFeed across other Social Networks - at least sometimes. If you don't they are likely to move on to somewhere their input is valued. - Internet Strategist

apparently not only doesn't Paul read, he doesn't participate to the conversation he starts, either. There is tremendous value in reading - not just for the mind, but for the brain. Video cannot supplant that, only supplement it. Just because it's easy, it doesn't mean it's better :) - Valeria Maltoni