Just a quick observation on the new Bloglines… Whereas I used to use the saved folder to quickly store posts that I hope to return to at some point, I find myself now just putting those posts in my Bloglines blog. It’s too easy to do. The saved (now “clipped”) posts were always a little difficult to get to…now they’re a click away.
There’s a much larger content management issue that I’m going to have to write about at some point. I must scan at least 2-300 posts a day at Bloglines and elsewhere. (I can count the number of sites I click through to each day on one hand.) I do a full read of maybe 50 or so. I end up blogging 2 or 3 of the most relevant here, Furling a few others, now blogging more “clips” at Bloglines… But very rarely do any of those archived pieces of information or thoughts ever get reviewed again…maybe 10 percent. Maybe. Now I know that there may be occasions in the future when I’ll dig them up. And I know that some of that Furled content is being used on other pages of my site as a kind of filing cabinet. And I know that more and more I’m searching my own site for ideas that are in there (which needs to lead to another post about how blogs really don’t do a great job of making old ideas readily accessible.) But if I’m getting back to only about 10 percent of the stuff I save, it feels like I must be wasting a good portion of this time.
Much more to it than that, I know, but I need to think and observe a bit more before really digging into it.
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You struck a nerve: “I’m searching my own site for ideas that are in there (which needs to lead to another post about how blogs really don’t do a great job of making old ideas readily accessible.)”
Is there some sort of qualitative research software of an Nud*ist variety that could create a synergy within blog posts? Do you ever get the feeling that yesterday’s posts somehow depreciate in value just because there are newer posts forthcoming? Perhaps that is just the nature of the beast. Good thoughts, Will.
I love Bloglines and actively promote it to faculty as the best stepping stone into usiing RSS and building resources– yet I never use it to monitor the hundreds of sites I track– it is not really an interrface that allows easy scanning of headlines, as eacy feed requires a click and web transaction to even get to the content, and it is the full content.
A desktop aggregator allows me to scan ALL headlines from all sources with no transaction delay, and it is more efficient timewise.
I do agree with your weill written points about the 10% that really get’s some of your attention– the art must be in guessing which is the best 10%.
Even if the old stuff “depractes” you have a record, and for students, it is a record that they can reflect upon.
Alan…I understand exactly what you mean, but I’ve found that scanning headlines requires people to write really good headlines, something that doesn’t happen as often as it needs to. So do I save more time by scanning heds while missing some good content, or do I spend more time and maybe give myself a better chance of finding most of the good stuff?
No good answers to this problem. I meant more like scaning headlines and the first and second paragraphs of content.
If the headlines are poorly written then I might miss stuff. Or I won’t come back. My perusals are sometimes thorough and other times casual. Sometimes I click to the blog and explore what is linked, manny other times I just scan the feeds. I also so some mental notetaking on stories that are blogged on repeated sites that I respect.
When it comes down to it there is this human aspect of gleaning that scripts, amchines, and bots can never do for me. Never.
Like a circle of friends, I put more weight in referrals and stories from blogs I “know” (from past good experience), at the same time, I troll for other sites worth adding to my own “inner circle”
What I do NOT like:
* blogs that just echo a copied blurb from elsewhere (e.g. no editorial context or why a referred web site is “cool”. You do an excellent job of placing context around sites you blog about.
* blogs that refer to other sites, but their feeds force you to go to the blog site just to get a URL.