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 24 after the jump, and all episodes by clicking on the Trimming in Public tag:
- THE RUMBLO RSS FEED ONE MILLION: An online comic that started out as something brilliant, but over time has become terrible. I don’t recommend it, but check it out anyway since you might see something you like. Decision: Unsubscribe.
- The Smartphones Show: Steve Litchfield from All About Symbian produces a weekly 10 to 12 minute show all about mobile phones. Don’t let the fact that he writes for All About Symbian put you off, he reviews Windows Mobile devices, iPhone applications, and even has guests appear reviewing BlackBerry devices. I can’t say I really learn anything new from watching this show, but it is nice to watch while drinking a cup of tea, if only to just see what someone has to say about a mobile phone on video. Steve isn’t “just another consumer”, he has been writing about mobile devices since the time when they didn’t have any cellular radios and were known as PDAs. The guy knows what he is talking about. Decision: Keep on reading.
- The Technium: Kevin Kelly’s blog that covers how technology impacts our society and how all the technology we own and use in our daily lives will soon become a living and breathing entity. It’s a bit … well how should I put this nicely, the posts are chock full of facts about how we as a species have used technology to help us evolve, and where we are going to continue evolving, but in the end it’s all really just a guess. It’s a guess for stuff that’s going to happen by the time I’m an old man, and I’m not even 30 yet. I’ll stick to focusing on the near and medium term. After learning how to forecast trends while working at Nokia, I’ve learned that forecasting itself is nothing more than an art of bullshiting. I prefer the hard sciences. Decision: Unsubscribe.
- The Universal Desktop: A blog about RIA (Rich Internet Application) platforms, such as Microsoft Silverlight and Adobe Flash. The author stopped updating in March 2009, which means this site is basically dead. Decision: Blog no longer updated = unsubscribe, but it will not be counted towards today’s list of 10.
- This Isn’t Happiness: A photo blog that shows images one would call retro and nonsensical. Seeing pictures mixed in with my glut of technology and science RSS items helps my mind focus, plus it causes inspiration. I didn’t have the words to describe this, until I read this New York Times article about pattern recognition. Apparently when the human mind is subjected to images and texts that do not make sense, the brain works harder at attempting to find patterns, which thus improves reading comprehension. I thought I was weird, I mean who would subscribe to an RSS feed of nothing but pictures? But now I have some vindication. Decision: Keep on reading, or in this case looking.
- ThoughtFix on Nokia Internet Tablets: ThoughtFix is a nice guy, I even shared a hotel room with him one year during CES. This is/was his blog about Nokia’s Maemo running devices. Just yesterday he announced he is no longer going to be updating it, which is a shame. Decision: Unsubscribe and replace with another blog: All About Maemo.
- ThreeDimensionalPeople: I owe a lot to Stephen Johnston. He is the man who believed in my passion for Nokia and invited me to speak in front of a large group of people about digital natives, the way we work and the new way to market to people without sounding like a douche bag. This happened after I arrived in Finland, but before I was hired full time by Nokia. Within Nokia, I can’t think of anyone else who is trying to push change down everyone’s throats as hard as Stephen. He started a mailing list jokingly called “Nokia 2.0” that discusses how the times are a changing and how Nokia should adapt. It’s been running for a long time, several years now, and if it has taught me anything about Nokia, it showed me that there are plenty of bright people inside, but if you can’t convince the handful of people sitting at the top to change their thoughts, then you’re literally just wasting your breathe. I think Stephen is a bit tired of trying to push change inside Nokia, and I have no clue about what he is doing now, but there was once a time when he was an icon inside Nokia. Decision: Unsubscribe.
- Today On 3G: The name of this blog changed to “World of Nokia” and as it stands … the site is a bit shit. Mark Guim from “The Nokia Blog” does a better job at covering Nokia, and really, at the end of the day, if you’re a busy person and can’t be bothered with keeping up on what’s going on in the mobile space by reading multiple websites, each dedicated to a specific manufacturer, just read IntoMobile 🙂 or some of my other favorite mobile sites: Phone Scoop, Mobile Burn, Unwired View and Engadget Mobile. Decision: Unsubscribe.
- TorrentFreak: Which countries are hunting pirates down and making an example out of them by slapping huge fines on copyright violators? How are content creators (read: people who make movies and music) using bit torrent to help them profit? What are the most popular TV shows and movies being pirated? This site has the answers. I also don’t really care anymore since reading about people getting fines isn’t going to stop me from pirating. I could also care less about which movie, show or album is getting pirated the most since I could give two shits about what the internet as a whole thinks is popular. I know what I like, and I have circles of friends who have the same, or roughly the same taste as I do, and that’s how I get recommendations about what to grab illegally from the comfort of my home. Decision: Unsubscribe.
- TreoCentral: A Palm fan site dedicated to the Treo line of devices. If you’re into that sort of thing, I recommend you subscribe to it since it’s quite good. As for me, I’ve moved off the Palm platform, and can’t even check out the new webOS stuff since it isn’t available on the unlocked market. That will change with time, and I’ll probably start reading Palm blogs again after I buy a Palm device, but that isn’t going to happen in the foreseeable future. Decision: Unsubscribe.
- tvRSS: I’m subscribed to 4 RSS feeds from tvRSS, which is now called ezRSS by the way. This website is a European’s dream come true. In America, you guys get all the latest TV shows first, and then, if we’re lucky, they come to Europe, often delayed by a year or two. ezRSS is a website that allows you to search for your favorite show, and then subscribe to that show’s RSS feed. That RSS feed you just subscribed to spits out bit torrent files which you can then open up in your favorite bit torrent client and pirate away! The bit torrent client I use, µTorrent, already has an RSS reader built in so I no longer need to have these feeds in my reader. If you’re curious as to what I pirate, then let me share my routine: Monday morning I wake up and grab the following shows: Curb Your Enthusiasm, Mad Men, Family Guy, The Simpson and Californication. Tuesday to Friday mornings I wake up and pirate The Daily Show. I used to watch Real Time with Bill Maher, but that show jumped the shark after Bill started bringing up religion into each and every episode. I’m a hard core atheist and think religion is probably the stupidest invention man has ever created, but it should not be used as a punchline over and over and over again. I also watch Top Gear whenever the season starts. Oh and I’m also looking forward to the start of season 3 of Metalocalypse next month. Decision: Unsubscribing to all 4 RSS feeds since I have separate software to handle my piracy needs.
Down to 110 RSS feeds and I have less than 20 feeds left to review!