Trimming in Public is a series where I go through my list of 293 RSS feeds, 10 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 publication 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 feeds 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 9 after the jump, and all episodes by clicking on the Trimming in Public tag:
- HF: Nokia: Howard Forums is the premier North American internet discussion forum to discuss mobile handsets. You’re not going to find me on there since the place is terribly moderated and the majority of the people who post there have a difficult time wrapping their heads around this concept known as unlocked devices, but they are good for breaking news and leaks. Remember what I told you in previous episodes: harness the power of social media to help make your job easier. I’m a damn Jedi when it comes to browsing the internet, but I am only one man. Having an entire online forum scouring the internet for the latest news, in order to post in a thread before everyone else to gain bragging rights, helps me spot things before most people do. I can recall several instances where reading this RSS feed has provided me with a scoop, but to quote the French film Irréversible: “time ruins everything.” The signal to noise ratio became too high. Any time someone created a new thread in the Nokia subsection of Howard Forums, I’d read about it. Not anymore. Decision: Unsubscribe.
- HF: S60: Same concept as above, but this sub forum was for S60 based smartphones. Same conclusion. Decision: Unsubscribe.
- Holy Internet Batman!: My personal blog that I haven’t updated for 2 years, and don’t plan to update ever again. I will not count this toward my 10 since I lost all rights to the domain holyinternetbatman.com due to Go Daddy failing to inform me that my credit card expired. Decision: Unsubscribe, not counted.
- Horizon Channel: This blog was started by the people who started Communities Dominate Brands. They stopped posting two years ago. Yet another failed social media experiment. Decision: Unsubscribe.
- How to Change the World: Guy Kawasaki was a man who was in the right place, at the right time. He is known to be the first Technology Evangelist, meaning everything he said about the company that paid his bills had a positive spin applied to it, making anyone listening to him get a better impression of that company compared to what was actually occurring inside. Today this is called being an online troll, a fanboi or a paid social media consultant. The company that Guy worked for was Apple, and he worked there for around four years, the most important one being 1984 which saw the launch of Macintosh. Since leaving in 1987 he has done a few odd things, mainly speaking gigs where he told other people about how they too can con people into believing whatever marketing material the public relations department published. In 1995 he went back to Apple with the goal of, and I quote: “maintain and rejuvenate the Macintosh cult.” He did that for a couple of years and then left again. Now I’m not saying Guy is full of shit. The man gives genuinely good advice. Fantastic advice is you’re a clueless individual who can not sell a bottle of Vitamin Water to the latest no talent asshole to grace the stage of MTV’s Real World. But I’ve had enough social media propaganda. Decision: Unsubscribe.
- HowardChui: Howard is the man behind Howard Forums. This is his personal blog. I don’t even know why he blogs, the amount of money this man makes from the ads on Howard Forums could afford him a comfortable lifestyle of endless mojitos and girls in bikinis lounging around an Olympic sized swimming pool. He doesn’t really break news, and his reviews are often less than 300 words. Decision: Unsubscribe.
- HowardForums: Your Mobile Phone Community & Resource – Palm OS: Same concept as the first two in today’s list, except this is for Palm. I used to use Palm devices all the time, hell I miss my Handspring Visor, but today I could care less about what Howard Forum members have to say about Palm. Will the Pre save them, will Palm die, will Verizon get the Pre and will that help Palm not die? Waste. Of. Time. Decision: Unsubscribe.
- I Watch Stuff! – The Best Movie News Ever: I love movies. I download them all night, and watch them all day. I Watch Stuff is the blog I used to use to keep track of what’s hot and what to avoid. Now I use something else, and I’m not going to spoil it, you’re going to have to wait until I reach the letter “R.” Leave a comment below if you think you know what the site it. Back to I Watch Stuff: the writing is great, to the point and with plenty of witty metaphors. I just can’t read it anymore though. It’s frustrating reading an awesome review, or watching a fantastic trailer, and then realizing that film hasn’t been leaked yet. I mean really, it would be like me telling you about a Nokia device that will come out during Christmas 2010. Fantastic to know about that piece of hardware, but if you can’t purchase it, of what use is that knowledge? Decision: Unsubscribe.
- IceRocket news search: Nokia: Ice Rocket used to be a blog search engine, similar to Technorati, that would spit out an RSS feed. Type a query for Nokia, or your favorite brand or topic, and then subscribing gives you things you may have missed. Now they’re trying to search everything. I don’t want this type of feed anymore. Decision: Unsubscribe.
- Identity Woman: Hate the fact that you’re on multiple social networks, each with a different username and password, each with a different set of friends? I do, and Kaliya Hamlin does as well. Her blog stays on top of topics such as OpenID, Facebook Connect, and Google’s Open Social in an attempt to understand what is happening in the identity space and weigh in on the pros and cons of the technology companies introduce. You may not care about the fact that Google and Facebook know more about you than you know, but at some point I’m thinking users will start to get a bit worried about having so many traces of their digital self online. While I deeply care about these issues, I don’t care enough to keep on reading her blog. The internet changes all the time, and what may be a truth today, may be heresy tomorrow. I’m just going to go with the flow, rather than push my views down someone’s throat. I can’t count the number of times I told the people building Ovi that the identity system should support OpenID. If it did when Ovi shipped, Ovi would still be shit. See what I’m getting at? The small pieces are important, but the big picture is even more so. Decision: Unsubscribe.
- information aesthetics: A must read site for data visualization nerds. Decision: Keeper!
- An extra one for today, I have information aesthetics in my RSS reader twice. One of the feeds is dead. It’s been removed.
Down to 230!