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 13 after the jump, and all episodes by clicking on the Trimming in Public tag:
The last episode was published a little over 2 weeks ago. I apologize for that. Blame it on summer. When I moved to Finland during the summer of 2007, I could not understand why people partied as hard as they did. After living through one winter, I never questioned the hard core drinking, grilling, and sauna-ing ever again. When you live somewhere that has no sun and doesn’t get above 5 degrees centigrade for more than half of the year, you go all-fucking-out at having a good time when summer arrives. That being said, today is a terrible day, which is why I’m stuck indoors, writing this for you my dear readers:
- MobHappy: Home to Carlo Longino and Russell Buckley, this duo usually writes about the monetary aspect of mobile, mainly focusing on advertising. With Russell working for AdMob, what do you expect? I have mixed feelings about this blog. Both Carlo and Russell point to interesting stories, but when Russell starts talking about advertising, I cringe. I hate advertising, in all shapes and sizes. Hearing how many millions of impressions AdMob had in a month is a bit useless, that would be like me recording how many brunettes I saw walking down the street on my way to get a bottle of Stolichnaya. It’s a gimicky metric, but Russell does a good job of not bringing up AdMob very frequently. These two have been in the mobily industry longer than most, and for that I respect their opinions since they’ve been around the block. I’ll keep on reading MobHappy because I learn what it is like for the people out there in the mobile industry trying to put food on the table. They’re just as important as the people who buy devices. I only have one request for you guys: blog more frequently, your nuggets of gold on Twitter are good, but people are starving for quality content. Decision: Keeper.
- Mobile 2.0 and Emerging Mobile Media Services: Dead feed, will not count towards today’s 10.
- Mobile Entertainment: The title of this site gives it away, they focus on videogames, music, and most any form of content that makes money on mobile. They spit out a partial RSS feed and going to their site results in little text, lots of ads, and zero links. If I find something interesting on Mobile Entertainment, I usually end up searching for that bit of news on Google to find more substance. Decision: Partial RSS feed, crazy amount of ads, little depth = good bye.
- Mobile Jam Session: This feed is for an event that happened last year. I’m sure it will happen again this year too, but do I really care about hack-a-thon sessions? Not really. What do these late night, Red Bull drinking, illegal file trading evenings result in? Applications that need a lot of refinement. Decision: Unsubscribe.
- Mobile Opportunity: Michael Mace is a bloody genius. He started working for Apple in the late 80s until the mid 90s, then he worked at SGI for a year, after that he jumped on board with Palm and proceeded to work there for 6 years. He has seen a lot, and that kind of experience is highly appreciated. With the number of blogs focussing on mobile doubling every few months, it’s hard to find people who actually know what the hell they’re talking about. Mobile Opportunity is a front for the company he works for now: Rubicon Consulting. They do surveys, and create strategies, but they don’t actually do products or services, which is a shame. They’re consultants, and if you’ve ever worked for a large company, you know the term consultant has some very strong negative connotations. That being said, his insights almost always help me ask the right questions in order to get the answers that truly matter. Decision: Fantastic content.
- Mobile Phone Helpdesk: A long time ago, this site used to get a lot of scoops. I don’t know what happened, but they stopped bringing exclusive content to the table. Now they publish news that I’ve already read 24 hours ago on other mobile blogs. Decision: Slow to update, no more interesting content, unsubscribe.
- Mobile-Review.com – last news: This RSS feed is for the English version of one of my favorite websites: Mobile-Review. That being said, it has not been updated since December 2005. Dead feed, will not be count towards today’s 10.
- Mobile-Review.com – ????????? ???????: This is the Russian version of the above feed. No I can not read Russian, but Google Reader has a translate feature which is ultra handy. Almost all the leaks that happen in the mobile industry appear on this site first. I should keep on subscribing to it, but I’m not going to. Another one of my favorite sites, which I’ll get to in another episode, called Unwired View, has an editor who can read Russian and he usually does a bang up job at translating the important bits of information that I need to read and churn in to IntoMobile blog posts. I’ll let him keep on top of this. Decision: Unsubscribe.
- MobileBurn.com: Most mobile phone sites are like the BBC program Top Gear. Ordinary people, testing ultra high end expensive devices, telling the world which one is the best. Mobile Burn does that, but it also reviews hardware that others may glance over such as mid range and low end devices. I like that about them, and because of that I’m going to keep on reading their site. My buddy Ricky Cadden also blogs there, which is another reason I keep subscribing to this feed. Decision: Keep reading.
- MobileCrunch: TechCrunch’s attempt at a technology blog focused on mobile. It hardly has any original content. The site just republishes blog posts from the larger, more popular, CrunchGear property. Decision: Unsubscribe.
- Mobility Site: This used to be my favorite Windows Mobile blog, but that honor now goes to Pocket Now due to excellent concise writing, and loads of multimedia. I don’t have Pocket Now in my RSS reader, I just read their stuff via Twitter. I’m not usually the guy to handle Windows Mobile news, but I’ll still keep myself up to date just so I can engage in a semi-knowledgeable conversation about the operating system. Decision: Unsubscribe.
- mocoNews.net: I don’t care if I get in trouble with the IntoMobile crew for saying this, but if I had to read only one blog to keep on top of the mobile industry, it would be mocoNews. These guys must have read the Reuters manual on journalism. They have no biases, most of the time at least, they have plenty of original content in the form of interviews, and the fact that they focus less on devices and more on services is what makes this website one of the few that I would actually pay for, out of my own pocket, to read. Decision: Enthusiastically recommended for everyone in the industry.
Down to 198 feeds!