Trimming in Public is a series where I go through my list of 293 RSS feeds, 10 RSS feeds at a time, give some detail as to why I subscribed to a particular feed, and then decide whether or not to keep on consuming that feed. In Episode 1 I explained what RSS is and how to use it, please read that if you need a refresher on why RSS is awesome and why you should be using it if you take reading news on the internet seriously. The prefix to Trimming in Public is “Becoming a better blogger, reader and helping me take out the trash.” For the bloggers out there who read IntoMobile, I hope you get a better idea of what I do to keep on top of the news. For the readers who read IntoMobile, I know that this site isn’t the only mobile focused technology site on the internet, and by sharing which sites I read I’m hoping that you’ll keep on coming back here. Taking out the trash has an obvious explanation, I can’t keep up with my RSS feed and need to trim my list. For those who want to download my complete list of 293 RSS feeds, feel free to grab my OPML file.
Check out Episode 3 after the jump, and all episodes by clicking on the Trimming in Public tag:
- Blackbeltjones/Work: Matt Jones used to work for Nokia. He is one of the people who banged his head against the wall when the iPhone came out because Nokia had stuff like the iPhone in the labs, but the company classified his work as too risky to implement. He has a wicked eye for noticing what’s happening around his immediate surroundings, you have to as a designer, and I respect what he outputs. Sadly, he doesn’t blog here anymore. He moved to Magical Nihilism, which I subscribe to. Seeing as how this RSS feed is dead, it deserves to be removed. Decision: Unsubscribe.
- Blogdigger search for nokia: Blogdigger used to be a blog search engine, and now it doesn’t exist. If you really like a company, as you’ll see in the coming episodes, find search engines that offer an RSS feed for search results. That’s another powerful feature of RSS. If you don’t know where to start looking for content, find a blog search engine, input a query, and then subscribe to the search results so that anytime something happens, you’re going to be up to date. Decision: Dead site = unsubscribe.
- Bloglines Search: “nokia”: Bloglines is another blog search engine, and I think they’re owned by Ask.com, but don’t quote me on that. I’m going to repeat what I said above: If you really like a company and what to stay on top of what they do, use a blog search engine and subscribe to the results. Be warned, this type of RSS feed is what one would call “high volume.” If you’re subscribed to one blog search engine, it may be manageable, but as you’ll see in upcoming episodes, I’m subscribed to several blog search engines. Decision: Unsubscibre.
- Bodyhack: Of all the sciences, biology, and more specifically human biology, interest me the most. I even studied medicine, but it was a path I chose not to follow. Wired started a blog that was all about looking at what was going on in the science and medical field. I enjoyed it, but they just stopped posting in July 2007. Shame. Decision: Unsubscribe.
- Boing Boing: A Directory of Wonderful Things: One of my favorite blogs out there. Boing Boing is a website that posts content that can best be described as “random” and “eccentric.” They have a daily video podcast that I used to watch, and I honestly don’t know why I stopped, I may need to start catching up on that. People say that when The New York Times talks about something it is now mainstream information. When Boing Boing talks about something, all the web junkies roll their eyes and declare it old news. Personally, I always manage to find something interesting every day on Boing Boing and for that reason alone, it stays. Decision: Cool site!
- CCS Insight Blog: Analysts fall into a certain category of media. They may not like that I classify them as media, but they’re basically doing the same thing media companies do. Bloggers like me, the gang at IntoMobile, the people at Engadget and Gizmodo, we all scour press releases, investor relations reports, and anything a company outputs in order to write a snarky opinion about it that will hopefully get linked to, drive traffic up, and pay our salaries. Analysts scour press releases, read investor relations reports, and then tell people with a lot of fucking money, I’m talking filthy rich, which stocks to buy. Analysts are often quoted by the press, and I never understood why. They have access to the same information press people do. I think it’s because most journalists out there haven’t got the slightest fucking clue about the beat they’re assigned to cover. You’re a mobile phone nerd if you’re reading this: ever read something a mainstream paper said about a mobile device and just shook your head in awe that something like that was even published? Quoting an analyst inflates a journalist’s word count and makes him look less like a retarded. Apple fans love to quote analysts for some strange reason too, that I’ll never understand. Not I’m not shitting on all analysts, few out there are worth listening to. Very few. Decision: Unsubscribe.
- Cellular-News: If there was ever a website to prove that having a homepage that looks like it was made in the 90s is OK if you pack high quality content, this site is it. Cellular News is a bloody gold mine of data. They are horrid at linking to their sources, if they even link to them at all. They’ll often lift whole articles and not cite where they got the content from, but a simply Google Search will fix that. If you’re in the mobile industry and not reading this site, something is seriously wrong with you. Decision: Ultra fucking worthy!
- Change.gov | Blog: This was Obama’s blog when he was running for President. Now that he is, I don’t care about American politics anymore. A friend of mine once asked me if I was excited that Obama is now the President of the United States and if I’m looking forward to the changes he’ll bring to the nation. I looked at him and said something along the lines of: Listen, governments change slowly and he has to fix what happened during the previous 8 years. I live in Finland now, where everything works, and all I had to endure was a long flight. In the future people will be a lot more mobile than they are now. Why would anyone want to stay in a country that is on the brink of collapse, when they could just as easily do what they do from a nation doing remarkably well. He just sat there silent. Decision: Unsubscribe.
- Chris Heathcote: anti-mega: Nokia employee, ultra smart guy, blogs quite rarely, and I think he is a designer, but I honestly forget. Not being able to type a name into Nokia’s internal search engine and getting their title and who their colleagues and boss are is killing me. Decision: Worthy.
- ChristianLindholm: If you don’t know who this man is, you deserve a smack across the face. Remember the old Nokia UI? I’m not talking about a 4 way D-pad and a left and right soft key, I mean the old school up, down, one soft key, and a cancel button UI; remember that? This guy invented it and the first product to ship with the “Navi-Key” interface was the 3110 in 1997. He no longer works for Nokia and now owns a highly successful design firm called Fjord. They do end to end products, from drafting the user experience, to writing the code that makes it run. His people are responsible for the BBC iPlayer. Decision: He is the god father.
I’m down to 276 now from 293, feels nice, but it’s still hell going through my RSS feeds. Tune in for Episode 4 tomorrow!